“Highlights” of a Criminological Career: Anthony Doob and the State of Evaluation Research in Canada

Abstract

Anthony Doob's career as a criminologist has been distinguished by his commitment to evidence-based policy development and to making criminological research relevant not just to other scholars but, perhaps more importantly, to policy makers, criminal justice practitioners, and the public. This paper provides an overview of the underdeveloped state of evaluation research on crime prevention and policy in Canada and discusses some of the obstacles to conducting rigorous evaluations. Fortunately, these obstacles – which include a tendency to rely on ideology and intuition as opposed to empirical evidence and a lack of sufficient resources for evaluation studies – have not discouraged Doob in his efforts to improve our criminal laws and justice system so that they reflect the fundamental Canadian values of justice, fairness, and humanity. Through his own research and his promotion of others' research – through, for example, Criminological Highlights – he has worked tirelessly to promote interventions by the criminal justice system that are informed by these values as well as by sound empirical evidence as to their effectiveness.