Bruce Western is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Western’s recent work has focused on the link between social inequality and the growth of prison and jail population in the United States. He finds that the penal system has become a common presence in the lives of poor Americans, with lasting effects on their life chances. As a quantitative social scientist, Western has also contributed to the use of Bayesian statistics in sociology.
