Wright, James D(avid) 1947–

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WRIGHT, James D(avid) 1947– (Jim Wright)

PERSONAL: Born November 6, 1947, in Logansport, IN; son of James Farrell (a welder) and Helen Loretta (a secretary; maiden name, Moon) Wright; married S. R. Rosenbaum, December 23, 1969 (divorced); married Christine Ellen Stewart, July 25, 1987; children: Matthew James, Derek William. Education: Purdue University, B.A. (with honors), 1969; University of Wisconsin, M.A., 1970, Ph.D., 1973. Politics: Democrat. Hobbies and other interests: Cooking, gardening, travel.

ADDRESSES: Office—Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, Howard Phillips Hall, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32826; fax: 407-823-6738. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Sociologist, educator, writer. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, assistant professor, 1973–76, associate professor, 1976–79, professor of sociology, 1979–88; Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, Favrot Professor of Human Relations, 1988–2001; University of Central Florida, Orlando, Provost Distinguished Research Professor, 2001–. Also serves as consultant to private industry and human service organizations.

MEMBER: American Sociological Association, Society for the Study of Social Problems.

WRITINGS:

(With Richard F. Hamilton) New Directions in Political Sociology, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1975.

The Dissent of the Governed: Alienation and Democracy in America, Academic Press (New York, NY), 1976.

(With Peter H. Rossi, Sonia R. Wright, and Eleanor Weber-Burdin) After the Cleanup: Long Range Effects of Natural Disasters, Sage Publications (Beverly Hills, CA), 1979.

(With Peter H. Rossi) Social Science and Natural Hazards, Abt Books (Cambridge, MA), 1981.

(With Peter H. Rossi, Eleanor Weber-Burdin, and Joseph Pereira) Natural Hazards and Public Choice: The State and Local Politics of Hazard Mitigation, Academic Press (New York, NY), 1982.

(With Peter H. Rossi, Eleanor Weber-Burdin, and Joseph Pereira) Victims of the Environment: Loss from Natural Hazards in the United States, 1970–1980, Plenum Press (New York, NY), 1983.

(With Peter H. Rossi and Kathleen Daly) Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime, and Violence in America, Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, NY), 1983.

(With Peter H. Rossi and Andy B. Anderson) The Handbook of Survey Research, Academic Press (New York, NY), 1983.

(With Peter H. Rossi) Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms, Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, NY), 1986, revised edition, 1994.

(With Richard F. Hamilton) The State of the Masses, Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, NY), 1986.

(With Eleanor Weber) Homelessness and Health, preface by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, McGraw-Hill's Healthcare Information Center (Washington, DC), 1987.

Address Unknown: The Homeless in America, Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, NY), 1989.

(With Joel A. Devine) The Greatest of Evils: Urban Poverty and the American Underclass, Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, NY), 1993.

(With Joseph F. Sheley) Gun Acquisition and Possession in Selected Juvenile Samples, U.S. Department of Justice (Washington, DC), 1993.

(With Joel A. Devine) Drugs as a Social Problem, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Joseph F. Sheley) In the Line of Fire: Youths, Guns, and Violence in Urban America, Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, NY), 1995.

(With Joseph F. Sheley and Zina T. McGee) Weapon-Related Victimization in Selected Inner-City High School Samples, U.S. Dept. of Justice, (Washington, DC), 1995.

(With Beth A. Rubin and Joel A. Devine) Beside the Golden Door: Policy, Politics, and the Homeless, Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, NY), 1998.

(As Jim Wright) Fixin' to Git: One Fan's Love Affair with NASCAR's Winston Cup, Duke University Press (Durham, NC), 2002.

Also author of numerous journal articles, monographs, published papers, and book reviews. Editor of Social Institutions and Social Change (book series), 1984–, and Social Science Research Quarterly Journal, 1978–.

SIDELIGHTS: Sociologist James D. Wright is an authority on the issues of gun control and violent crime, as well as on poverty and homelessness. Wright's publications include In the Line of Fire: Youths, Guns, and Violence in Urban America and Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms, later published in an expanded edition. These books follow years of research and reports, including work funded by the National Institute of Justice, an arm of the U.S. Justice Department. Wright stated his concerns about establishing effective gun laws in a 1985 interview in the Chicago Tribune, saying that "part of the problem is that the polarization on both sides of the issue—between the advocates of gun control and its opponents—is so extreme that it's difficult for any moderate position to form."

Moreover, Wright expresses his opposition to strict limitations on gun purchases based on several findings: that the cheap handguns known as "Saturday night specials" were more frequently the property of poor, law-abiding residents in high-crime areas than criminals; that stolen firearms—guns once legally purchased—accounted for a large number of the guns employed by criminals in the commission of a violent crime; and that ninety-nine percent of all registered gun owners never use guns to shoot another person or to commit a crime.

Wright's publications regarding poverty and homelessness include The Greatest of Evils: Urban Poverty and the American Underclass, cowritten with Joel A. Devine, and Address Unknown: The Homeless in America. Writing for New Republic, reviewer John J. DiIulio, Jr., included a discussion of Wright's findings from Address Unknown in a wide-ranging look at literature on homelessness. Wright was among a number of scholars who argued that a lack of affordable housing was largely responsible for the increase in the number of homeless people.

Wright has also written a very different book (as Jim Wright) in Fixin' to Git: One Fan's Love Affair with NASCAR's Winston Cup. The sociological study with a personal twist reflects the author's experiences in attending nine Winston Cup races in one season (1999), what he refers to as his "Fixin' to Git Road Tour." He dispels the idea of NASCAR fans as moonshine-drinking rednecks and notes that in the early days, more than one third of all races were held outside of the South. Wright studies the demographics of the fan and driver, the perceived racism of NASCAR, and corporate involvement and influence over the sport. Wright reveals that while growing up in Indiana, he watched his father race on quarter-mile dirt tracks, the beginnings of his passion for the NASCAR life.

Southern Cultures writer Dan Pierce commented, "While seemingly innovative, Wright's conclusions about the insignificance of moonshining and the relative lack of Southern influence on the sport's formative years ignore important facts. It is true that the numbers of verifiable liquor runners driving in early NASCAR races were relatively small; however, the influence, popularity, and success of individuals with moonshine connections … were not." Pierce felt that "Wright's observations at Winston Cup races that don't ring true detract from the work as well, as do repeated factual errors and a strange style that sees a need to define 'fixin' in the same sentence that the word 'solecism' is used…. Finally, I'm just not sure of the intended audience of a book that feels the need to define the word 'corndog.'"

"Told with humor, insight, and energy, this may not be the ultimate NASCAR book, but it sure comes close," wrote Harvey H. Jackson in Journal of Southern History. "From sponsors to pit crews, from drivers to souvenir sellers, hardly any element in the spectacle of stock-car racing is left unexamined." A Kirkus Reviews contributor described Fixin' to Git as "a fan's-eye view of auto racing's Winston Cup circuit and a sociological scan of the members of the NASCAR tribe, as dedicated and loyal a bunch as any Deadhead."