James Q. Wilson

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James Quinn Wilson (May 27, 1931-2013) was an American liberal academic, political scientist, and an authority on public administration.

The bulk of his career was spent as a professor at UCLA and Harvard University.

He was chairman of the American Enterprise Institute, member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (1985–1990), and the President's Council on Bioethics.

He was the Director of the Harvard-MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies. He served as president of the American Political Science Association and as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, and Human Rights Foundation.

He was also a co-author of a well-known university textbook, American Government, and penned several academic books and articles as well as op-ed essays.

In The Atlantic, he attracted national notice for an article in 1982 that introduced the broken windows theory.

In 2003, US President George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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Career

He earned his B.A. degree. In 1952 and 1952, he was the national collegiate debate champion at the University of Redlands, and he was its national collegiate debate champion. He received his M.A. degree from a University in Los Angeles. (1957) and a Ph.D. (1959) in political science at the University of Chicago. He was the Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard University from 1961 to 1987.

In 1975, his book Thinking About Crime presented a new model of incapacitation as the most empathetic explanation for crime decreases, but in circumstances where longer prison sentences were the norm, it was the most effective explanation. Criminals may not be deterred by the threat of longer sentences, but repeat offenders will be discouraged from further committing crimes simply because they will be in jail rather than out on the streets.

In the 1982 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, Wilson and George L. Kelling introduced the broken windows theory. They argued in a piece titled "Broken Windows" that low-level crime and disorder are characterized by low-level violence and disorder (e.g. : A broken window) contributes to increased crime, particularly serious ones.

He was the James Collins Professor of Organizational Studies and Public Policy at UCLA's Anderson School of Management from 1987 to 1997. He was the Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy from 1998 to 2009.

Wilson authored the university textbook American Government and coauthored later versions with John J. DiIulio, Jr. The text has been widely distributed, but its use in later years has been criticized after universities accused it of inaccuracies and "right-wing bias."

Wilson was a former chairman of the White House Task Force on Crime (1972–1973) and a member of the Attorney General's Violent Crime Task Force (1985–1990), and the President's Council on Bioethics (1985–1990). He was a former president of the American Political Science Association. He served on the board of directors for the New England Electric System (now National Grid USA), Protection One, RAND, and State Farm Mutual Insurance.

He served as Chairman of the American Enterprise Institute's Council of Academic Advisors. He was a member of the American Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the New York-based Human Rights Foundation.

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Awards

• Honorary doctorate from Brigham Young University, 1994
• Honorary doctorate from Harvard University
• Lifetime Achievement Award, American Political Science Association, 2001
• Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2003