[1] He had been the Provost's Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida since 2001.
In 2001, he left Tulane to join the sociology department at UCF as Distinguished Research Professor.
[2] Wright has researched several topics in the field of sociology, including poverty, homelessness,[5] covenant marriage,[6] and gun control.
[7] In 1983, he collaborated with Peter Rossi and Kathleen Daly on a study underwritten by the National Institute of Justice which showed that about 1% of privately owned guns in the United States are used in crime; the study reported that the "benefits of stricter gun controls ... are at best uncertain, and at worst close to nil.
"[8] In 1986, he and Rossi published the book Armed and Considered Dangerous, which reported the results of a survey of 1,800 felons.