Professor Dick Hobbs.

Professor Dick Hobbs, previously of our Department of Sociology and Centre for Criminology and now an Essex Emeritus, is to receive this year’s Outstanding Achievement Award from the British Society of Criminology.

The award is in recognition of Professor Hobbs’ major contribution to criminological research and education.

President of the British Society of Criminology Professor Peter Squires FAcSS said: “I am delighted that Dick Hobbs is our outstanding achievement award-winner for 2016, for many years he has pioneered an approach to criminology that we ignore at our peril, meticulously studying crime, criminality and law enforcement at the 'sharp end.

“Without the valuable insights he has provided, our criminological imagination would be that much poorer”.

On hearing he was to recieve the accolade Professor Hobbs said, "I got my first lectureship at the age of 39, and I have always appreciated the freedom that academic life offered when compared to my previous jobs as a clerk, labourer, dustman and schoolteacher. This award comes as a very welcome surprise. Thank you to the British Society of Criminology. "

Born and raised in London's East end, Professor Hobbs is an urban ethnographer specialising in the sociology of London, organised and professional crime, the night-time economy, violence, drug markets and research methodology.

Author of several books, including the seminal ethnographic study of crime, criminals and crime fighters Doing the Business: Entrepreneurship, the Working Class and Detectives in the East End of London, Professor Hobbs has also conducted a wide range of consultancies for government agencies and the mass media.

He has also presented evidence to the UK government on the night-time economy, and to a Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Australian drug markets.

Professor Hobbs will receive his award on 6 July at the opening day of the British Society of Criminology’s annual conference in Nottingham.