Lewis Edward Yablonsky

Dr Lewis Edward Yablonsky was born in Santa Monica, California on Jan 29, 1924 and was 89 when he died of natural causes on January 29 2013, in Santa Monica.

Yablonsky was an authority on youth gangs, hippies and drug addicts whose rough-and-tumble early years gave him insights others lacked and a longtime professor of sociology at Cal State Northridge, gaining national prominence as a sociologist, criminologist and author.

When growing up in New Jersey in the 1930s, he was beaten by poor whites for being Jewish and by black gangs for being white. He committed petty thefts, ran crooked card games and carried a switchblade for protection. Some of his closest friends wound up behind bars and seeing this, Yablonsky chose the straight path, using his rough-and-tumble youth as a springboard to a distinguished career: He became an authority on youth gangs, hippies and drug addicts whose personal experiences gave him insights other scholars lacked.

A leading figure in sociology in the 1960s and '70s, Yablonsky was known for his practical approach. He worked with members of New York street gangs in the tense "West Side Story" era of the 1950s, producing a socio-psychological study of "losers trying to be winners" in his first book, "The Violent Gang" (1962). His work treating drug addicts in Santa Monica with reformed alcoholic Charles Dederich resulted in "The Tunnel Back: Synanon" (1965), a provocative early study of the rehabilitation program before it took on cult overtones and became associated with violence.

He also worked extensively in prisons to rehabilitate inmates and in later decades testified in court cases as an expert witness. In 1993 his testimony rebutting a theory about the behavior of individuals in a mob helped put Damian Williams in prison for the brutal beating of truck driver Reginald Denny after the L.A. riots of 1992. "He was very committed to the idea that sociology had a practical side to it and could make a contribution to society," said Vince Jeffries, a Cal State Northridge emeritus professor of sociology. "He was a very caring person, particularly toward those who made mistakes or were disadvantaged and could be helped toward a better life."

Born Nov. 23, 1924, in Irvington, N.J., he was the son of Harry Yablonsky, a Russian Jewish immigrant who drove a laundry delivery truck, and his Romanian wife, Fannie. In Irvington he endured anti-Semitic taunts ; in elementary school in Newark, he was victimized because he was white, fast learning the sociopathic characteristics of senseless violence that stood him well in later work as a criminologist and gang expert in the judicial process. His memoir in 2012 was titled "Confessions of a Criminologist: Some of My Best Friends Were Sociopaths."

In high school Yablonsky became a card and dice sharp, plus becoming a star athlete, who went to the University of Alabama on a baseball scholarship. He left after a year to serve in the Navy during World War II. Kicked out of officer training for running card games, he served stateside and was honorably discharged in 1946.

Earning a business degree from Rutgers University, he was dismayed by the anti-Semitism of his co-workers on a job and enrolled at New York University to study sociology, earning a master's degree in 1952 and a doctorate in 1957. While working on his doctorate he counseled juvenile delinquents in Newark.

In 1961, after teaching at the University of Massachusetts for three years, Yablonsky accepted a position at UCLA and began to study Synanon, which was gaining attention for its innovative treatment of drug addiction. He helped introduce Synanon members to psychodrama, a role-playing therapy he learned at NYU from its leading practitioner, Jacob Moreno.

His marriage to Donna King, a former addict he met during a psychodrama session at Synanon ended in divorce after 17 years. Besides son Mitch, of Santa Monica, Yablonsky is survived by a brother, Joseph, of Lady Lake, Fla.

• Updated from U.S. Social Security Death Index (SSDI) by SmartCopy: Nov 25 2014, 3:28:02 UTC
• Residence: 1930 -  Irvington, Essex, New Jersey, USA
• Race: White
• Updated from 1930 United States Federal Census by SmartCopy: Nov 25 2014, 3:29:16 UTC