Bruce Western

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Bruce Prichart Western
Born (1964-07-01) July 1, 1964 (age 59)
Australia
Nationality
mass incarceration
SpouseYes
Children3 daughters
Scientific career
FieldsSociology
InstitutionsColumbia University
Harvard University
ThesisUnionization trends in postwar capitalism: a comparative study of working class organization (1993)
Doctoral advisorIván Szelényi[1]

Bruce Prichart Western (born July 1, 1964)[2] is an Australian-born American sociologist and a professor of sociology at Columbia University. In 2023, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.[3]

Early life and education

Western was born in

Graduate Center, CUNY, with the intention of both working with sociologist Iván Szelényi and fulfilling a long-held dream of living in New York City.[7] Szelenyi left the Graduate Center in 1988, and Western followed him to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he subsequently received his master's and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from in 1990 and 1993, respectively.[6]

Career

After receiving his PhD, Western taught at

John F. Kennedy School of Government.[11] In 2018 he moved to Columbia University, where he is professor of sociology and co-director of the Justice Lab.[12]

Research

Prisons and mass incarceration

Originally, Western's research pertained to organized labor, but he became interested in researching prisons and

mass incarceration, in his words, "almost by accident" after talking to a colleague about the United States' use of prisons to manage disadvantaged populations.[9] As of 2008, he had written or co-written more than a dozen articles about prisons, as well as a book (Punishment and Inequality in America) on the same topic.[9] In Punishment and Inequality in America, originally published in 2006, he concludes that "mass imprisonment has erased many of the 'gains to African American citizenship hard won by the civil rights movement.'"[13] In a 2010 study, Western and fellow sociologist Becky Pettit outlined the way in which, according to them, poverty increases prison populations and these populations in turn increase poverty.[14][15] Other studies co-authored by Pettit and Western have found that on average, incarceration reduces annual salaries by about 40% for the average male former prisoner, and reduces hourly wages by, on average, 11% and annual employment by nine weeks.[16][17] In 2009, with Devah Pager and Naomi Sugie, he found African American job applicants with a criminal record were less likely to receive a call back after an interview than white applicants with a criminal record.[18]

As of 2013, Western was studying what happens to prisoners after they are released, and has interviewed the subjects of the study in person, which has, according to Elizabeth Gudrais, "put a human face on the statistics and dashed preconceived notions in the process."[19] In 2015, he published a study based on these interviews, showing that 40% of the recently incarcerated prisoners he interviewed in the Boston area had witnessed a killing when they were children.[20][21] Another finding of his research on these released prisoners was that most of them immediately return to poverty upon their release.[22]

Unions

He has also researched the relationship between the decline of unions and increasing income inequality, and has found that the former accounted for a third of the increase in income inequality among male workers.[23][24]

Honors and awards

In 2005, while on the faculty of the

Michael J. Hindelang Book Award from the American Society of Criminology and the 2007 Albert J. Reiss, Jr. Distinguished Scholarship Award from the American Sociological Association.[26] Western was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 2015.[27]

Personal life

Western lives in New York, New York.

References

  1. ProQuest 304073404
    .
  2. ^ "Bruce Western". Library of Congress. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
  3. ^ https://www.amphilsoc.org/blog/american-philosophical-society-welcomes-new-members-2023
  4. ^ "Professor John Western remembered". University of Queensland. August 10, 2011. Retrieved November 22, 2018.
  5. PMID 28784808
    .
  6. ^ a b "Bruce Western CV" (PDF). Harvard University. Retrieved November 28, 2015.
  7. PMID 28784808
    .
  8. ^ "Professor Bruce Western". United States Studies Centre. Retrieved November 28, 2015.
  9. ^ a b c "Bruce Western". Harvard Magazine. January–February 2008. Retrieved November 28, 2015.
  10. ^ Lavoie, Amy (June 14, 2007). "FAS names Bruce Western professor of sociology". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved August 21, 2017.
  11. ^ "Bruce Western". Harvard University. Retrieved November 28, 2015.
  12. ^ "Bruce Western". Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  13. ^ Gottschalk, Marie (April 15, 2008). "Two Separate Societies: One in Prison, One Not". Washington Post. Retrieved November 28, 2015.
  14. S2CID 57571604
    .
  15. ^ Abramsky, Sasha (October 8, 2010). "Toxic Persons". Slate. Retrieved November 28, 2015.
  16. ^ Tierney, John (February 18, 2013). "Prison and the Poverty Trap". New York Times. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  17. ^ Porter, Eduardo (April 30, 2014). "In the U.S., Punishment Comes Before the Crimes". The New York Times. Retrieved June 23, 2017.
  18. ^ Ajunwa, Ifeoma; Onwuachi-Willig, Angela (2018). "Combating Discrimination Against the Formerly Incarcerated in the Labor Market". Northwestern University Law Review. 112 (6): 1390. Retrieved February 13, 2020.
  19. ^ Gudrais, Elizabeth (March–April 2013). "The Prison Problem". Harvard Magazine. Retrieved January 13, 2016.
  20. doi:10.7758/rsf.2015.1.2.02
    .
  21. ^ Smith, Clint (February 8, 2016). "The Meaning of Life Without Parole". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  22. ^ Walsh, Colleen (March 1, 2016). "The Costs of Inequality: Goal Is Justice, but Reality Is Unfairness". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved June 23, 2017.
  23. S2CID 18351034
    .
  24. ^ Harkinson, Josh (August 1, 2011). "Major Study Links Decline of Unions to Rising of Income Inequality". Mother Jones. Retrieved November 28, 2015.
  25. ^ "Bruce Western receives Guggenheim Foundation fellowship award". Princeton University. August 31, 2005. Retrieved December 17, 2015.
  26. ^ "Punishment and Inequality in America". Russell Sage Foundation. Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Retrieved November 28, 2015.
  27. ^ "Bruce Western elected to the National Academy of Sciences". Department of Sociology News. Harvard University. April 29, 2015. Retrieved November 28, 2015.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bruce_Western&oldid=1171258487"