Does when you are born shape your life chances? A leading sociologist discusses his ground-breaking study of criminal justice that shows that when you come of age matters as much (and perhaps more than) who you are in determining whether you get arrested.
We discuss the implications for thinking about how historical context and social change affects your life chances.
Meet our speakers and chair
Robert J. Sampson is the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University. He is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He is the 2011 winner of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology and author of three award-winning books and numerous articles on crime, the life course, urban inequality, and the changing social structure of cities. Sampson’s last book, Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect, is based on research from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. He is currently conducting a follow-up study covering 25 years in the lives of study participants who came of age at different times during the social transformation of crime, punishment, and inequality over the last three decades.
Nicola Lacey is School Professor of Law, Gender and Social Policy. From 1998 to 2010 she held a Chair in Criminal Law and Legal Theory at LSE; she returned to LSE in 2013 after spending three years as Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, and Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory at the University of Oxford. She is also an Associate of the International Inequalities Institute at LSE. She has held a number of visiting appointments, most recently at Harvard Law School. She is an Honorary Fellow of New College Oxford and of University College Oxford; a Fellow of the British Academy; and a member of the Board of Trustees of the British Museum.
Peter Trubowitz (@ptrubowitz) is Professor of International Relations, and Director of the Phelan US Centre at LSE and Associate Fellow at Chatham House. His main teaching and research interests are in the fields of international security and US foreign policy. He also writes and comments frequently on US politics. Before joining the LSE, he was Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. He has also held visiting positions at Harvard, Princeton, University of California at San Diego, Universidad de Chile, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City, and the Beijing Foreign Studies University, where he was the J. William Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in American Foreign Policy.
More about this event
This event is part of the LSE Festival: People and Change running from Monday 12 to Saturday 17 June 2023, with a series of events exploring how change affects people and how people effect change. Booking for all Festival events will open on Monday 15 May.
The Phelan United States Centre (@LSE_US) at LSE is a hub for global expertise, analysis and commentary on America.
Twitter hashtags for this event: #LSEFestival
Podcast and video
A podcast of this event is available to download from The Birth Lottery of History.
A video of this event is available to watch at The Birth Lottery of History.
Podcasts and videos of many LSE events can be found at the LSE Public Lectures and Events: podcasts and videos channel.