John Ortiz Smykla, Ph.D., is currently professor and chair of the Division of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies at The University of West Florida. Previously he was professor and chair of the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice at the University of South Alabama. Before that, he was professor of criminal justice at the University of Alabama and served as department chair for ten years. Using multimedia, Dr. Smykla teaches courses in corrections and research methods and has supervised more than 50 master’s and doctoral students. He has taught two-way interactive corrections courses across several campuses of the University of Alabama system. Dr. Smykla earned the… interdisciplinary social science Ph.D. in criminal justice, sociology, and anthropology from Michigan State University. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sociology from California State University at Northridge. Dr. Smykla has authored or edited four corrections books. His dataset, Executions in the United States, 1608-2002: The Espy File, is one of the most frequently requested criminal justice datafiles from the University of Michigan’s Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. Dr. Smykla has published more than 40 research articles on corrections issues, including “The Human Impact of Capital Punishment," "Placing Uruguayan Corrections in Context," "The Impact of the ‘New Penology’ on ISP," "Effects of a Prison Facility on the Regional Economy," "Jail Type and Inmate Behavior," and most recently, "Juvenile Drug Courts." Dr. Smykla has delivered more than 50 conference papers in the United States and abroad, and he serves on the editorial boards of Criminal Justice Review, International Criminal Justice Review, and Journal of Crime and Justice.. In 1986, he was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Argentina and Uruguay. Dr. Smykla is a member of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and the Southern Criminal Justice Association. In 1996, the Southern Criminal Justice Association named him Educator of the Year. In 1997, he served as Chair of the ACJS annual program committee. In 2000, he served as President of the Southern Criminal Justice Association. Among his civic activities today, Dr. Smykla is a member of the Mobile County Metro Jail Planning Committee and the Mobile Chamber of Commerce Candidates’ Campaign Workshop, a forum for educating citizens interested in running for public office about campaign issues.