My husband, Vincenzo Ruggiero, who has died aged 73, was an expert in the academic field of critical criminology, a discipline that examines the genesis of crime and the nature of justice, particularly in relation to class structures.
He wrote 23 books on the subject, including Crime in Literature (2003), which delved into the world of literature to draw links between organised crime, drugs and political corruption.
In 1998 he was seconded to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna, leading groundbreaking research on organised crime and human trafficking, and in 2014 he won the lifetime achievement award from the American Society of Criminology.
Vincenzo was born in Ferrara in northern Italy to Neapolitan parents, Assunta (nee Capozzi) and Antonio, travelling salespeople who had migrated there in search of work. Throughout his adolescence the family moved a number of times from city to city, returning to Naples when he was 16.
After attending various secondary schools Vincenzo went to Parma University, where he studied English and French before becoming a teacher of English in Bologna and Rome. Eventually he settled in Turin, where his teaching extended to evening classes for workers at the local Fiat factory. It was in Turin that he also began to have his first books published.
He and I met in 1988 when were both on separate trips to Barcelona; the following year he sold his flat in Turin and moved to London, where I lived, and we were together thereafter, finally formalising our union through a civil partnership in early 2024.
In London Vincenzo began lecturing in sociology at Middlesex University, later becoming a professor of sociology and director of social and criminological research, posts he held until his death.
He is survived by me, our daughter, Lucia, and his siblings, Maria, Luigi and Anna.
