Adaner Usmani

Professor Usmani's research is driven by some simple questions about the distribution of flourishing and suffering in modern societies. They are also interested in the often-fraught relationship between normative commitments and empirical work. Most of Professor Usmani's ongoing work is on American mass incarceration. With John Clegg, Professor Usmani is working on a book in which they seek to explain American punishment by studying it in comparative and historical context. The book is based on a multi-year effort to collect comparative and historical data on prisons, policing, penal spending, and related series. With Chris Lewis, Professor Usmani is working on a book explaining what is wrong with mass incarceration if the standard story of its origins is false.