James A. Inciardi is the director of the Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies at the University of Delaware; a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware; an adjunct professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Miami School of Medicine; a guest professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil; and a member of the Internal Advisory Committee of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Dr. Inciardi received his PhD in sociology at New York University and has a background in law enforcement, corrections, drug abuse treatment, and research. He began his career as a parole officer with the New York State Division of Parole, first as an institutional parole officer at New York's Green Haven Prison, followed by investigative and undercover work with New York State Parole's Bureau of Special Services, and finally as a field parole officer in a special narcotics project. After leaving the New York parole authority, he conducted street research in many cities across the United States. Although he joined the criminal justice faculty at the University of Delaware during the late 1970s, he has continued conducting research and lecturing in many parts of the world.

In addition to his role as a professor of criminal justice at the University of Delaware, Dr. Inciardi is the director of his university's Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies, a multinational research center with field offices in Delaware, Florida, the United States Virgin Islands, and Porto Alegre, Brazil. His current work includes developing and evaluating drug abuse treatment initiatives for drug-involved offenders; street-based drug studies in Miami, Florida; and HIV prevention research in South Florida, Latin America, and the Caribbean Basin. Finally, Dr. Inciardi is the author of more than 400 articles, chapters, and books in the areas of criminal justice, criminology, substance abuse, history, folklore, public policy, AIDS, medicine, and law.