I'm delighted to report that James Q. Wilson -- one of the leading criminologists in the nation -- will be guest-blogging this week, chiefly about incarceration and crime rates in the U.S.
Prof. Wilson is emeritus professor at UCLA's management school, and is now Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine; before that, he was professor of government for 26 years at Harvard. He has served on many national commissions (including the White House Task Force on Crime and the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board), as well as the president of the American Political Science Association. He is the recipient of the Presidential Medal Freedom, and the American Political Science Association's James Madison Award for a career of distinguished scholarship. He has written extensively about crime in books such as Thinking about Crime, Crime and Human Nature (with Richard J. Herrnstein), and Crime: Public Policies for Crime Control (with Joan Petersilia). His most recent book, co-edited with Peter H. Schuck, is Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Can I Be a Meaningful Blogger?
- Drug offenders in prison:
- Deterring crime:
- What Do We Get From Prison?
- James Q. Wilson Guest-Blogging:
I'm looking forward to being reminded what goes in place of the "...".
JC
We'll see what the reactions are; ad hom, or to his conclusions, facts, and logic.
We look forward to the professor's comments.
Herrnstein was also one of the most distinguished and well respected Professors of Psychology at Harvard University.
Fat lot of good it did him. He and Murray are forever tarred as racists.
Well, yes, if one writes a book about how science proves that blacks are stupid and shouldn't breed, one will be tarred as a racist. Funny how that works.
For what it's worth, Richard Aubrey, I have no intention of judging Professor Wilson based on a book written by someone else with whom he collaborated twenty-some years ago. I look forward to his contributions with considerable interest.
Oh, yeah. You didn't get the point of the book exactly right.
To stay with the broken window metaphor, the issues you discuss are busted ten-by-ten triple-glazed picture windows.
In jewelry stores.
But, yes, the point is clear. If you can do this, you can do that as soon as you think of it. And the victims and potential victims feel defeated.
Which, when you think about it, might be the point.
Tyrant: you clearly have not read the Bell Curve; or if you did, you certainly did not understand it.
Why has racial division become so much less important in American politics? . . . [A] large factor has been the decline in urban violence. . . . [D]uring the Clinton years, for reasons nobody fully understands, the wave of urban violence receded, and with it the ability of politicians to exploit Americans’ fear.
I'm not going to defend what The Bell Curve said about race. I'm not going to touch it. But if you actually read the book, you'd see that this is most certainly NOT what it said.
I was/would be interested in whether or not Wilson's views would be attacked by virtue of his associating with an officially designated racist (the late Herrnstein).
Wilson's work remains, if not generally controversial, at least contentious in some circles. And I was interested in whether the opposition would use the tactic of accusations of racism.
The contribution...? Probably nothing, except to forecast how debate on these issues goes. Perhaps the forecast would forestall some of it. Perhaps not.
Is the association with Herrnstein who also associated with Murray sufficient to tar Wilson? You wouldn't think so, but there are some viewpoints which would not scruple to drag it out if other arguments failed. Will they show up here?
Have your read the book? Do you have a copy handy? Finally tell us specifically what in the book is incorrect.
Now you're a racist. Boy, this is easy.
EV: typo, I think there's an "of" in there.