Criminological Highlights is designed to provide an accessible look at some of the more interesting, high quality, criminological research that is currently being published. Its focus is on research that is policy-relevant.

The project began in September 1997 with funding from the Department of Justice Canada. Issues are released approx. every 2 - 3 months with each volume consisting of six issues. The Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies gratefully acknowledges the Geoffrey Hinton Criminology Fund for its current funding of this project.

It is produced by a group of about a dozen academics including faculty from the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University, doctoral students at the University of Toronto, and the CrimSL librarian. The project is directed by Anthony Doob and Rosemary Gartner.

We regularly scan approximately 70 journals and other research reports. In addition to those papers that we find systematically, we often get other papers recommended to us by readers of Criminological Highlights.

In choosing papers for Criminological Highlights we look for papers that are both methodologically sound and which would be likely to be interesting and informative to those interested in criminal justice policy.

Criminological Highlights is not designed to create a “summary” of all published research in criminology, nor is Highlights meant to be a substitute for a proper “review” of what is known in a particular policy area. Rather, the publication is meant to include summaries of findings that should be part of the “general education” of those interested in criminal justice policy.

Views – expressed or implied – in Criminological Highlights are not necessarily those of the University of Toronto, the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, or the Geoffrey Hinton Criminology Fund.