Sutherland, Edwin Hardin (1883–1950)

US sociologist and criminologist. His textbook, Criminology (1924), became a standard. It set out the multiple factors known to be associated with crime and criminality and argued that criminal behaviour was learned. He shattered the class-oriented study of crime with The Professional Thief (1937) and White Collar Crime (1949), coining the term ‘white collar crime’.

He was born in Gibbon, Nebraska. Son of a college president, he taught longest at Indiana University 1935–50, chairing the sociology department 1935–49.