Professor Bruce Western is an internationally renowned expert on poverty and inequality who studies the connections between political institutions and social and economic inequality, with a focus on criminal justice policy and incarceration. His recent research examines the causes, scope, and consequences of the historic growth in U.S. prison populations. Western is the Principal Investigator of the Square One Project, which re-imagines the public policy response to violence under conditions of poverty and racial inequality. He is author of two prize-winning Russell Sage Foundation books, Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison (2018) and Punishment and Inequality in America (2006), and is author, editor, or co-editor of nine books and monographs. He has recently co-chaired expert panels for the National Research Council on COVID-19 in U.S. prisons (2020) and reducing racial inequality in the criminal justice system (2022-2023). Western is the co-founder of the Justice Lab at Columbia University.
Western is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the American Philosophical Society. Prior to joining Columbia University, he held faculty appointments at Harvard University and Princeton University, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Born in Canberra, Australia, Western received his B.A. (Hons.) from the University of Queensland and his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles.
