Biography

James Q. Wilson was born on May 27, 1931 in Denver, Colorado, USA. He was married to Roberta Evans. He died on March 2, 2012 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

He taught at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1961. He later taught at the University of California in Los Angeles and at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.

He is survived by his wife, Roberta Evans Wilson, of North Andover, Massachusetts; a son, Matthew Wilson; a daughter, Annie Wilson Gilbert; a sister, Diane Wilson Gray; and give grandchildren.

He graduated with a Bachelor's Degree from Redlands University in the San Bernardino Valley, east of Los Angeles, California. He served in the United States Navy during the Korean War but not in combat. He earned a Master's Degree and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.

He was born in Denver, Colorado but grew up in Long Beach, California. Son of Claude Wilson, a salesman, and his homemaker mother Marie Wilson.

[in 1998] I know my political ideas affect what I write but I've tried to follow the facts wherever they land. Every topic I've written about begins as a question. How do police departments behave? Why do bureaucracies function the way they do? What moral intuitions do people have? How do courts make their decisions? What do blacks want from the political system? I can honestly say I didn't know the answers to those questions when I began looking into them.