Crime involving academic pleasure-seeker (8)
I believe the answer is:
hedonist
'pleasure-seeker' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'crime involving academic' is the wordplay.
'crime' becomes 'heist' (heist is a kind of crime**).
'involving' is an insertion indicator.
'academic' becomes 'don' (I've seen this before).
'heist' placed around 'don' is 'HEDONIST'.
(Other definitions for hedonist that I've seen before include "Thrill-seeker" , "one enjoying himself" , "he puts pleasure before work" , "seeker of fun" , "He believes pleasure is the chief good in life" .)