Vera Institute of Justice

Bruce Western is a professor of sociology at Harvard University, visiting professor at Columbia University, and distinguished visiting research professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. Western's research examines trends in American economic inequality and the growth of the U.S. incarcerated population. These topics are joined by an interest in the shifting landscape of American poverty over the last 40 years. Western served as vice chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Causes and Consequences of High Incarceration Rates in the United States, and he is the principal investigator on the Harvard Executive Session on Community Corrections and the Boston Reentry Study. He is the author of the award-winning book, Punishment and Inequality in America.