Lloyd Ohlin
| Lloyd Ohlin | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 27, 1918 Belmont, Massachusetts |
| Died | December 6, 2008 (aged 90) Santa Barbara, California Shy–Drager syndrome |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Sociology and criminology |
| Institutions | Harvard Law School |
| Education | Brown University |
| Alma mater | Indiana University |
Lloyd Edgar Ohlin (August 27, 1918 – December 6, 2008) was an American sociologist and criminologist who taught at Harvard Law School, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago over his career where he studied the causes and effects of crime and punishment, especially as it related to youthful offenders and delinquents.
Ohlin was born on August 27, 1918, in Belmont, Massachusetts, the son of Elise (Nelson) and Emil Ohlin, Swedish-born immigrants. He received a bachelor's degree in 1940 from Brown University and was awarded a master's degree in sociology from Indiana University in 1942. He later earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1954.
He served in the United States Army during World War II, performing counterintelligence in Europe. During the Korean War, he investigated conditions in Korean prisoner-of-war camps for George Washington University's Human Resources Research Office.
From 1947 to 1953, Ohlin was a sociologist for the Illinois Parole and Pardon Board where he was responsible for interviewing prospective parolees and making recommendations to the board for their consideration. He directed the Center for Education and Research in Corrections at the University of Chicago from 1953 to 1956. He was hired by the New York School of Social Work in 1956, and was later named director of the school's research center.
Together with fellow sociologist Richard A. Cloward, Ohlin wrote Delinquency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs, which rejected the prevailing assumption that delinquency resulted from irresponsibility of youths and argued that it was a symptom of poverty and the lack of alternative opportunities caused by poverty, and that the conditions underlying delinquency could be resolved through social programs in local communities that addressed the essential causes. As he told the New York Post in 1961, "The boy who joins a gang isn’t in a rut. He has aspirations, but no place to go with them."
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