Bruce Western is professor of sociology and director of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and author of "Punishment and Inequality in America."
He spoke as part of a two-day conference, organized by Holy Cross and held March 22-23, 2012, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication "The Other America," by Michael Harrington '47. The conference convened renowned scholars and activists to revisit Harrington's ideas on poverty and to take on some of the defining issues of poverty today.