Richard Rosenfeld, Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL), passed away peacefully on January 8, 2024, leaving behind a loving family and countless friends and colleagues across the globe.
Rick received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Oregon in 1984 and taught briefly at Skidmore College before joining UMSL as an Assistant Professor in 1989, remaining at the university for the rest of his long and distinguished career.
Rick was one of the nation’s most influential criminologists. His research interests ranged widely across the discipline, but he is best known for his work on the relationship between economic conditions and crime trends. He published more than forty peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the topic and chaired a National Academy of Sciences roundtable convened to study this issue. Most recently, Rick has worked with the nonpartisan US Council on Criminal Justice to produce timely and rigorous assessments of crime trends in cities throughout the US. These reports have become indispensable tools for policymakers seeking impartial information on changes in crime and the socio-economic forces underlying those changes.
In addition to his research on crime trends, Rick and his long-time collaborator Professor Steven Messner formulated one of the most important modern theories for understanding cross-national differences in crime rates—Institutional Anomie Theory. Developed in numerous articles and multiple editions of their book Crime and the American Dream, this theory links patterns and levels of crime to the balance and functioning of social institutions, such as the economy, family, and the educational system. Institutional Anomie Theory brought attention to the important role played by the social-welfare state in buffering the impact of economic hardship on crime. Crime and the American Dream has become required reading in criminology classes and is widely recognized as being part of the criminological canon.
Rick also advanced the study of contemporary crime-control policy, bringing empirical research to bear on policy debates over issues such as racial disparities in police stops and searches, the impact of police enforcement strategies on crime and disorder, and prisoner re-entry and its effects on community crime. He was dedicated to the St. Louis region, and collaborated with numerous local agencies on various anti-crime initiatives. In 2012, he served as “Criminologist in Residence” for the City of St. Louis Department of Public Safety and St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, during which time he worked on projects aimed at reducing violence.
As a public intellectual, Rick was dedicated to responsible and informed engagement with the public and policymakers. He served as an important resource for the media on issues related to crime trends and police activities, including the strengths and limitations of extant research on these issues. His careful analyses routinely appeared in national, international, and local media outlets such as NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Although Rick officially retired from the university in 2014, he remained a highly productive scholar until the end of his life. Post retirement, he published an additional 40 articles and three books, including his final book, Crime Dynamics: Why Crime Rates Move Up and Down Over Time, which will be published shortly by Cambridge University Press.
During his career, Rick’s sterling research, teaching, and service brought him wide acclaim from both the discipline and the university. He was an elected Fellow of the American Society of Criminology, served as the Society’s President, and received its highest honor, the Edwin H. Sutherland Award, for his outstanding scholarly contributions to criminology. At UMSL, Rick received all three of the major Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence (Research, Teaching, and Service) and in 2016, the UM System awarded him the Thomas Jefferson Professorship, the highest honor it can bestow on a faculty member.
Rick played a key part in building what was to become one of the nation’s strongest Criminology and Criminal Justice PhD programs. He did so not only through force of his own scholarly reputation, but also by his commitment to bringing out and celebrating excellence in his students and colleagues. It is a rare thing, but Rick was every bit as pleased by the successes of others as he was by his own achievements. He had a knack for making people believe in themselves such that they wanted to do better.
No short review can do justice to a life, especially one as full and well lived as Rick’s. Suffice to say that we will not see his likes again. Rick is survived by his wife, Janet Lauritsen; two sons Jake Hoffmann Rosenfeld and Sam Hoffmann Rosenfeld; his two daughters-in-law Erin McGaughey and Erica De Bruin; his brother Robert Rosenfeld; and his three grandchildren, Ida May, Henry, and Frankie. His loss will be felt by everyone lucky enough to have known him including his former colleagues, students, and friends.
Rick Rosenfeld CV
