Sophie Body-Gendrot

Sophie Body-Gendrot (30 October 1942 – 21 September 2018) was a French political scientist, criminologist and sociologist who specialised in security issues, urban violence, social inequality, and the discrimination young migrants suffered in the cities of Europe and America. She lectured at the Sciences Po, the University of New Orleans, the Middlebury College, Columbia University, New York University, the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, the Paris Nanterre University, Blaise Pascal University and Paris-Sorbonne University. Body-Gendrot was the author or co-editor of more than 20 books in English and French as well as more than 150 chapters and academic articles. She was a recipient of the Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes académiques in 2005 and was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 2012.

Early life and education Body-Gendrot was born in Verdun, Meuse on 30 October 1942. She was the daughter of the doctor Maurice Body and the painter Jacqueline Contant. Body-Gendrot was brought up in Verdun until the age of 17, and was educated at Lycée Margueritte in Verdun, then at Collège Sévigné in Paris. Body-Gendrot then worked as a lecturer at the Department of American Studies of the Paris Nanterre University from 1984 to 1986. and a year later, served as Director of Middlebury College in Paris for 100 graduate and undergraduate students until 1987. and alongside Michel Granger, was co-editor-in-chief of Revue Française d'études américaines. Body-Gendrot also appeared on television programmes about urban questions.

Works Body-Gendrot promoted criminology, comparative criminology, and policing as areas of specialization at Sciences Po and advocated criminology when it was not an official scholarly discipline in France. Her works focused on empirically grounded analysis of situations in the United States, the United Kingdom and France, with occasional forays to Brazil, India or South Africa.