Herman Diederiks (9 October 1937 in Rotterdam – 11 August 1995 in Ardèche) was a Dutch historian who specialized in crime and justice history in the Netherlands.
Diederiks joined the department of economic and social history of the University of Leiden around 1970, at a time when it was common in Dutch academia to hire people for teaching who would complete their PhD later.
The next year, under the aegis of the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, Herman, together with Maurice Aymard and Pieter Spierenburg, founded the International Association for the History of Crime and Criminal Justice.
Throughout the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s he was the force behind several international conferences in crime and justice history, as well as annual colloquia in the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme.
The prizewinning essay is published in the journal, and the winner is offered the opportunity of one month's research in Paris courtesy of the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme.