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Life Plus 99 Years: Nathan Leopold and Chicago Criminology

NCJ Number
212101
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume: 21 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2005 Pages: 336-349
Author(s)
Laurel Duchowny
Date Published
November 2005
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This article examines the autobiography of Nathan Leopold, a convicted murderer who wrote a sociological account of his life and criminality.
Abstract
In his autobiography Life Plus 99 Years, Leopold used a sociological discourse, the author argues, to gain distance from his own criminality and to align himself with the parole board at Stateville State Penitentiary, which was at that time headed by a sociologist. Leopold was indeed different from other offenders; he was a wealthy child from an exclusive community and had never been in trouble with the law before the murder. After his imprisonment, Leopold had extensive contact with sociologists, enabling him to pick up on the research methods and perspectives of sociologists. By analyzing criminality from a sociological perspective, Leopold was attempting to show the parole board how different he was from the other offenders in Stateville State Penitentiary and how similar he was to the individuals on the parole board. Indeed, his autobiography does not discuss the crime itself or Leopold’s motivation for committing the crime, but focuses instead on the criminality of others, discussing the social forces contributing to criminality in the offenders around him in Stateville. By telling his autobiography in this way, the author contends, his ultimate goal was to gain readmission into the community after being imprisoned for 35 years. His attempt at readmission was only partially successful. He was paroled but he was not allowed to remain in his community of Chicago and was forced, instead, to spend the remainder of his years in Puerto Rico with a small Protestant sect that offered to take him in. Note, References