Lloyd Ohlin

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. He studied the causes and effects of crime and punishment, especially as it related to youthful offenders and delinquents.

Life and career 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 Bloomington in 1942. He later earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1954. He taught at Harvard Law School until his retirement in 1982, after which he served as the Touroff-Glueck emeritus professor of criminal justice until his death.

In addition to his stint as president of the American Society of Criminology, Ohlin devoted time to public service in several presidential administrations, including as a special consultant on delinquency to the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under John F. Kennedy, as associate director of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice under Lyndon B. Johnson and as a member of the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice under Jimmy Carter.

Ohlin died at the age of 90 on December 6, 2008, at his home in Santa Barbara, California, of Shy–Drager syndrome, a neurodegenerative disease.