Albert John Reiss Jr. (December 9, 1922 – April 27, 2006) was an American sociologist and criminologist.

[3][4] He served as the William Graham Sumner Professor of Sociology at Yale University from 1970 until his retirement in 1993.

[2] He is recognized for his contributions to social control theory,[5] as well as for his research on police violence.

He has been credited with coining the term "proactive" while researching violent incidents between police and private citizens as a research director for Lyndon B. Johnson's President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice.

In 1996, the American Sociological Association named its Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Crime, Law and Deviance after him.