Good Food, Great Wine, and Unforgettable Conversations: A Tribute to Vincenzo Ruggiero (1951–2024)
(Reprinted from the newsletter of the American Society of Criminology, Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice, 33(1), pp. 10-13, published June 3, 2025)
It is an honor to pay tribute to Vincenzo Ruggiero, a highly respected professor and criminologist at Middlesex University, who passed away earlier this year.
Not only was Vincenzo a colleague, but he was also my friend.
I’m not sure when I first met Vincenzo, but I was introduced to his scholarship shortly after earning my doctorate.
I was drawn to his work because it explored issues that resonated deeply with me. Vincenzo had an impressive command of political science, sociology, criminology, and criminal justice, focusing on political crime, especially crimes of the powerful and corrections.
His work, especially Understanding Political Violence: A Criminological Approach (2006), Penal Abolitionism (2010), and Power and Crime (2017), has significantly impacted the field and my scholarship.
Vincenzo’s scholarship was meticulous, rigorous, thoughtful, and provocative. It is an excellent example of the type of articles, chapters, and books that shape our thinking and future scholarship.
Vincenzo had a rich history, full of meaningful experiences that predated his career as an academic. During the 1970s, he was “involved in penal reform campaigns [in Italy]. In 1976, he founded a bi-annual paper on prison issues, coordinating a network involving prisoners, their families, and reform activists, and in 1977 established a new publisher ‘Senza Galere’ (‘Without Prisons’) – later renamed ‘Ruggiero Edizioni’. The press mainly published fiction and poetry and all authors were prisoners serving a sentence or exprisoners. As Vincenzo suggested, this was surely an early example of ‘Convict Criminology’” (South, 2024), a field I co-founded three decades ago.
These works are a testament to his ability to combine his practical work and politics with his scholarship.
My relationship with Vincenzo deepened when I served as co-chair (2013-2015) and later chair (2015-2017) of the American Society of Criminology (ASC)’s Division of Critical Criminology, which was later renamed the Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice. During this time, we regularly discussed the state of the discipline, the division itself, the quality of scholarship being produced, and areas for improvement.
For the past decade, Vincenzo and I shared meals at nearly every ASC meeting, sometimes joined by colleagues and friends. These dinners, always accompanied by excellent red wine, were filled with wide-ranging and profound discussions.
And if dinner wasn’t on the agenda, we often found ourselves at a relaxed wine bar or restaurant late into the evening, enjoying a late-night bottle together. I got to know him better during these conversations and in these contexts.
One particularly memorable experience outside of academia was in July 2015, when Vincenzo invited my wife and I to his home in Ghizzano, Italy. Nestled in the hills of a picturesque Tuscan town, we had the pleasure of meeting his partner, Cynthia and hearing about their daughter, Lucia, whom they adored.
We enjoyed a delightful dinner at an exquisite restaurant in an outdoor setting. There, we savored plates of food prepared with locally sourced ingredients, paired with superb Tuscan wines.
After Cynthia returned to London, the three of us visited the nearby town of Volterra, sharing lunch. In the evening, we all attended an opera in Peccioli, performed at an amphitheater with rows of seats carved out of a mountainside. In addition to spending a few days at Vincenzo’s house, we witnessed his culinary skills and tasted the food he prepared. One evening, he graciously cooked pasta topped with a wonderful homemade tomato sauce.
Our relationship continued beyond Ghizzano. We would continue to hang out at ASC conferences, including the Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice socials.
In addition to his sharp mind, I saw a wry sense of humor. With the exception of me periodically misspelling his last name, which I did on a handful of occasions, rarely did I see Vincenzo pissed.
Although he often appeared to play cards close to his chest, his heart was always in the right place.
We knew many people in common, and it is clear that Vincenzo touched the lives of those who knew him well. His passing is a profound loss, not only to criminology and criminal justice, but also to the many people who knew, admired, and loved him.
References
South, Nigel (2024). Obituary Vincenzo Ruggiero, British Society of Criminology.
https://www.britsoccrim.org/vincenzo-ruggiero-obituary/
Photo Credit
Title: Vincenzo Ruggiero
Photographer: Middlesex University
