Albert J. Reiss

Albert John Reiss Jr. (December 9, 1922 – April 27, 2006) was an American sociologist and criminologist.

Career He served as the William Graham Sumner Professor of Sociology at Yale University from 1970 until his retirement in 1993. as well as for his research on police violence. He has been credited with coining the term "proactive" while researching violent incidents between police and private citizens as a research director for Lyndon B. Johnson's President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. This research led Reiss to conclude that there was a greater risk of violence in reactive police encounters than in proactive ones, prompting innovation in policing practices in many American police departments. In 1983, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. He was elected president of the American Society of Criminology in 1984, and of the International Society of Criminology in 1990, making him the first person to serve as president of both organizations. In 1996, the American Sociological Association named its Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Crime, Law and Deviance after him.