Burrel Vann Jr is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at University of California, Irvine, a Jack W. Peltason Fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy, and a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow. Burrel’s research addresses structural influences on political outcomes, and covers the substantive areas of social movements, inequality, segregation, drugs, crime, and voting. His previous work has appeared in American Sociological Review (with Rory McVeigh, Kraig Beyerlein and Priyamvada Trivedi). His current projects demonstrate the influence of social movements in elections, and the influence of crime, inequality, and movements on changes in drug policy.