Roger Matthews

We have sadly learned of the death of Roger Matthews, who passed away on 7 April 2020, aged 71 from the effects of COVID-19. Roger was a lecturer in the Department of Criminology from 1990 to 1993, sandwiched between two periods of work at Middlesex University.

He graduated from Middlesex University then studied for his MA at Sussex and his PhD at Essex.

An obituary in the Guardian notes that he “was one of the founders of a strand of academic criminology known as left realism, which challenged both the heavily punitive conception of law and order on the right, and the idealistic perspective of crime from the left.”

Professor Neil Chakraborti, current Head of the School of Criminology, writes: “Everyone at Criminology was deeply saddened to learn about the loss of Roger Matthews. He has been an inspiration to past, present and future criminologists, and was part of a brilliant team who laid the foundations for our current success as a School of Criminology. We all send our deepest sympathies and very best wishes to his friends and family. RIP Roger.”