Leanne Fiftal Alarid is Professor and Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Texas at El Paso. She double majored in Psychology and Sociology with a B.A. from the University of Northern Colorado. She worked in Denver as a counselor in a girls group home and then as a case manager at an adult halfway house before returning to school to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from Sam Houston State University. She was on the faculty at the University of Missouri�Kansas City from 1996�2006, and at the University of Texas at San Antonio from 2006�2013. Her research areas are post-conviction offender behavior, mental illness and justice-involved offenders, and correctional policy. She has also partnered with a number of criminal justice agencies as a researcher, consultant, and program evaluator. Dr. Alarid has authored more than 60 journal articles and book chapters, and authored or edited eight books. She received the Fellow Award by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in 2011 for outstanding contributions to criminal justice education and service.