ObituaryWilliam Amos
Submitted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011
William Earl Amos, Dallas, Professor Emeritus of criminal justice who worked at UNT
from 1980 to 1995, died Aug. 6. He joined North Texas as the director of the Criminal
Justice Institute and taught classes, counseled students and directed the student
internship program with area police departments. He researched and wrote about juvenile
delinquency, community counseling and criminality and also taught at Georgetown University
and American University. He was a past president of the American Society of Criminology
and of the Western Society of Criminology, and received service awards from both.
Amos was a U.S. Army veteran, serving as a military police officer during the liberation of Nazi concentration camps and recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He became a Secret Service agent in 1956, assigned to presidential protection. Amos also served as superintendent of schools for juvenile delinquents in the Washington, D.C., area, and was assistant director of the President’s Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. He was appointed to the U.S. Parole Commission in Washington, D.C. In 1974, he established the U.S. Parole and Probation regional office in Dallas. He earned a doctorate from the University of Maryland.