Kobrin, Solomon (1910–1996)

Solomon Kobrin was a pioneer in the study of juvenile delinquency. He was born in Chicago and earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Chicago in 1937 and 1939, respectively. His Ph.D. was in sociology from the University of Southern California in 1972.

His professional and research activity was strongly influenced by the Chicago School of sociology, which had a major impact on the study of crime and juvenile delinquency in the early part of the 20th century. In the 1920s, under the leadership of Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, members and students of the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago conducted a series of studies concerning the urban problems of the emerging American metropolis. A focus of their research was the increasing level of crime and, especially, juvenile delinquency. One of the classic works from this era was Frederic Thrasher's book The Gang (1927/1963). During the same period, Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay of the Chicago Institute for Juvenile Research, in cooperation with the University of Chicago, were also conducting research on juvenile delinquency in the city.

After receiving his master's degree, Kobrin started working as a research assistant at the Institute for Juvenile Research. He continued his association with the institute and in 1960 became head of the Division of Social Systems Analysis. In 1965, he received a National Institute of Mental Health Fellowship and relocated to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. While he was working on his Ph.D. at the Department of Sociology, he became a faculty member and a research associate in the Youth Studies Center and the Public Systems Institute of the university. In 1977, in recognition of his professional contribution to the study of juvenile delinquency, he was the recipient of the Edwin H. Sutherland Award of the American Society of Criminology, a scholarly organization that honors outstanding contributions to the discipline.

Throughout his long research career, Kobrin has focused on the study of juvenile delinquency. His first two major articles, “The Conflict of Values in Delinquency Areas” (1951) and “The Chicago Area Project: A 25-Year Assessment” (1959), became classics within the criminological literature. These articles were written in the theoretical framework of the social disorganization approach to the study of juvenile delinquency. This theory was developed by Shaw and McKay following the ecological orientation of the Chicago School and suggested that most slum neighborhoods in large urban areas are characterized by the breakdown of conventional institutions and social control. This atmosphere frees individuals, especially juveniles, to behave in ways disapproved of by the dominant social order and eventually leads to the development of cultural values favorable to delinquent behavior.

Kobrin continued to follow his research interest in juvenile delinquency among youth in slum areas. During the 1960s, he published a series of articles and book chapters on gang members, gang structure, cultural factors and delinquency, and drug use among young people in Chicago. In addition to his empirical research dealing with lower-class juvenile delinquency, Kobrin was also interested in theoretical [Page 226]issues concerning this topic. In a widely cited book chapter titled “The Formal Logical Properties of the Shaw-McKay Delinquency Theory” (1971), he applied principles of formal theory construction and pointed out some of the weaknesses of social disorganization theory. In a 1976 volume originally prepared for a symposium honoring Henry D. McKay, Kobrin contributed another theoretical chapter focusing on the limits and problems of labeling theory. A few years later (1982), he wrote another chapter dealing with theory development entitled “The Uses of the Life-History Document for the Development of Delinquency Theory.”

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