James Gilligan is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and an Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University, who has specialized in studying the causes and prevention of violence. For 35 years he taught at the Harvard Medical School, where he became Director of the Institute of Law and Psychiatry, and became director of mental health services for the Massachusetts prisons. From 1999 to 2001 he was President of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy.