James Q. Wilson

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James Quinn Wilson (born May 27, 1931 in Denver , Colorado , United States , † March 2, 2012 in Boston , Massachusetts ) was an American political scientist .

He owes his fame to a. the broken windows theory of the dynamics of the spread of crime, which he developed together with George L. Kelling in the 1980s . In 2003, then President George W. Bush honored Wilson with one of the two highest civilian awards in the country, the Presidential Medal of Freedom .

life and work

James Q. Wilson grew up in Long Beach , California, where he attended public schools. He studied at the University of Redlands until 1952 , then did military service in the United States Navy (1952-1955) and then studied at the University of Chicago , where he received a Masters degree in political science in 1957 and a Ph.D. in 1959. -Graduate degree. From 1961 to 1987 he taught at Harvard University , from 1985 to 1997 at the University of California, Los Angeles and then at Pepperdine University .

The behavior of police officers and law breakers was one of Wilson's main research areas. His theory, according to which police officers contribute more efficiently to the fight against crime if they are not primarily trying to hunt down perpetrators but rather work preventively in the sense that they engage in proto-criminal behavior in parts of the city that are threatened with neglect , gained great influence such as B. stop open drug trafficking , graffiti and secret transportation . In the 1990s, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani successfully put these ideas into practice in his city.

In addition to his research and teaching activities and the writing and editing of specialist books, Wilson was active as an advisor on numerous political bodies. In 1966 he was Chairman of the White House Task Force on Crime , 1972-1973 Chairman of the National Advisory Commission on Drug Abuse Prevention , in 1981 he was a member of the Attorney General's Task Force on Violent Crime , 1985-1991 the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board , 1971-1993 to the Board of Directors of the Washington Police Foundation and then to the President's Council on Bioethics . He has also worked in think tanks and in business, including as a member and Chairman of the Board of Academic Advisers of the American Enterprise Institute (since 1976) and on the Board of Directors of the State Farm Insurance Companies and the RAND Corporation . Scientific bodies to which Wilson was a member include the American Political Science Association , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1966), and the American Philosophical Society (1984).

With his wife Roberta, geb. Evans, he had two children and together with her published a book about marine fish. Wilson lived in Malibu , California for many years and died in 2012 of complications from leukemia .

Publications

editor

  • Crime and Public Policy , Transaction Publishers, 1983, ISBN 0917616510
  • with Joan Petersilia: Crime , Ics, 1995, ISBN 1558154175
  • with Peter Schuck: Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation , Public Affairs, 2009, ISBN 1586486950 (first published in 2008)

author

  • Negro Politics: The Search for Leadership (1960)
  • with Edward C. Banfield: City Politics (1963)
  • The Amateur Democrat: Club Politics in Three Cities - New York, Chicago, Los Angeles (1966)
  • Varieties of Police Behavior: The Management of Law and Order in Eight Communities (1968)
  • Political Organizations , Princeton University Press, 1995, ISBN 069104385X (first published in 1973)
  • Thinking About Crime , Vintage, 1985, ISBN 039472917X (first published in 1975)
  • The Investigators: Managing FBI and Narcotics Agents , Basic Books, 1978, ISBN 0465035892
  • The Politics of Regulation , Basic Books, 1982, ISBN 0465059686 (first 1980)
  • with Roberta Wilson: Watching Fishes: Life and Behavior on Coral Reefs (1985)
  • with Richard Herrnstein: Crime and Human Nature: The Definitive Study of the Causes of Crime , Free Press, 1998, ISBN 0684852667 (first published in 1985)
  • with John J. DiIulio, Jr .: American Government: Institutions and Policies , Houghton Mifflin, 10th edition 2005, ISBN 0618556621 (first published in 1986; limited online version in Google Book Search USA )
  • with David P. Farrington, Lloyd E. Ohlin: Understanding and Controlling Crime: Toward a New Research Strategy , Springer, 1986, ISBN 0387962980
  • Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do And Why They Do It , Basic Books, 1991, ISBN 0465007856 (first published in 1989; limited online version in Google Book Search - USA )
  • On Character: Essays by James Q. Wilson , American Enterprise Institute Press, 1995, ISBN 0844737879 (first published in 1991; limited online version in Google Book Search - USA )
  • The Moral Sense , Free Press, 1997, ISBN 0684833328 (first published in 1993)
  • Moral Judgment: Does the Abuse Excuse Threaten Our Legal System? , Basic Books, 1998, ISBN 0465047335 (first 1997)
  • with Leon R. Kass: The Ethics of Human Cloning , American Enterprise Institute Press, 1998, ISBN 0844740500 ( restricted online version in the Google Book Search - USA )
  • Moral Intuitions , Transaction Publishers, 2000, ISBN 0765806312 ( limited online version in Google Book Search - USA )
  • The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Damages Families (2002)
  • American Politics, Then and Now: And Other Essays , American Enterprise Institute Press, 2010, ISBN 0844743194 ( limited online version in Google Book Search - USA )

Awards

  • 1990 - James Madison Award from the American Political Science Association
  • 1994 - John Gaus Award
  • 2003 - Presidential Medal of Freedom

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b James Q. Wilson Dies at 80; Originated 'Broken Windows' Policing Strategy obituary in the New York Times, March 2, 2012
  2. ^ Member History: James Q. Wilson. American Philosophical Society, accessed January 1, 2019 (with biographical notes).
personal data
SURNAME Wilson, James Q.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilson, James Quinn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American political scientist
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Denver , Colorado
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 2012
Place of death Boston , Massachusetts