James Q. Wilson, Professor | Biography

James Q. Wilson is one of the leading contemporary criminologists in the United States. Wilson, who has taught at several major universities during his academic career, has also written on economics and politics during his lengthy career. During the 1960s and 1970s, Wilson voiced concerns about trying to address the social causes of crime. He argued instead that public policy is most effective when it focuses on objective matters like the costs and benefits of crime. Wilson views criminals as rational human beings who will not commit crimes when the costs associated with crime become impractical.

Wilson grew up in Long Beach, California. He graduated from the University of Redlands in 1952 and then served three years in the U.S. Navy. Upon his discharge he entered graduate school at the University of Chicago, earning a doctorate in 1959. He was hired by Harvard University to teach government and remained at the school for 26 years. In 1987 Wilson joined the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as James Collins Professor of Management and Public Policy. In 1997 he moved to Pepperdine University to continue teaching as the Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy.

Wilson is the author or co-author of fourteen books, includingMoral Judgment and theMoral SenseAmerican Government,Bureaucracy,Thinking About Crime,Varieties of Police Behavior,Political Organizations andCrime and Human Nature with Richard J. Herrnstein. In addition Wilson has edited or contributed to books on urban problems, government regulation of business, and the prevention of delinquency among children. Many of his writings on morality and human character have been collected inOn Character: Essays by James Q. Wilson.

During his career Wilson has served on a number of national commissions concerned with public policy. He was chairman of the White House Task Force on Crime in 1966, Chairman of the National Advisory Commission on Drug Abuse Prevention in 1972-1973, a member of the Attorney General's Task Force on Violent Crime in 1981, a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1985 to 1991, and a member of the board of directors of the Police Foundation from 1971 to 1993.

Wilson has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. In 1990 the American Political Science Association presented him with the James Madison Award for a career of distinguished scholarship, and in 1991 and 1992 he served as the association's president. In 1994 he received the John Gaus Award for exemplary scholarship in the fields of political science and public administration.

Wilson's 1975 book,Thinking About Crime, is one of his most important and influential works. He staked out a conservative viewpoint and challenged the view that crime was a function of external forces, such as poverty and that crime could be reduced by the government taking measures to change these forces. In Wilson's view, there has been no data to support the assumption that poverty causes crime, hence it made little difference to crime rates if the government spent money on social programs. Instead, Wilson argued that deterrence is the best model for reducing crime. Government should apply stronger sanctions to deter would-be criminals and to incarcerate known criminals. He theorized that people who commit crimes lack inhibition against misconduct, value the excitement and thrills of breaking the law, have a low stake in conformity and are willing to take greater chances than the average person. What Wilson defined as a particular "thought process and criminal decision making"is a rational choice approach to crime causation. He believes that individuals make clear, rational decisions after evaluating all their possibilities and do that which will bring them the most pleasure and the least pain.

This viewpoint gained currency in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as public policymakers at all levels of government moved to strengthen criminal sanctions. Most states moved from indeterminate sentencing schemes that allowed judges to decide what penalty should be applied to an individual offender to mandatory systems that mandate judges to impose a particular sentence regardless of the individual offender's circumstances.

InCrime and Human Nature with Richard J. Herrnstein, Wilson generated controversy as he examined various biological and developmental factors associated with individual criminality. He concluded that constitutional factors, including gender, intelligence, age, temperament, and fetal alcohol syndrome may help to explain deviance.. Wilson described constitutional factors as those factors which are usually present at or soon after birth and whose behavioral consequences usually appears during the child's development. Furthermore, these traits are not necessarily genetic. Such an explanation for crime would also undercut liberal theories that emphasize environment causes.