History Appendix C: Origination of the Doyle AwardAPPENDIX CTHE RICHARD F. DOYLE AWARDThere have been twenty-two recipients of the prestigious Richard F. Doyle Award since its inception in 1964. It was created in order to recognize and honor Federal Probation Officers who have made outstanding contributions in the criminal justice field. The individual whose name was given to this award was himself an outstanding figure in the Federal Probation System.
Richard Ferris Doyle (1904-1980) was a 1926 graduate of the University of Michigan. Six years later he joined the Federal Probation office at Detroit and, in 1937, he was appointed Chief Probation Officer for the Eastern District of Michigan. Richard F. Doyle was the first president of the Federal Probation Officers Association, serving from 1955 to 1959. His work in behalf of the Association and the Federal Probation System was characterized by excellence and devotion. Charles Hosner, a later president of the Association, who worked in the same office of Richard Doyle recalled,
Dick had a ... commanding personal appearance. He was a warm, friendly person and an inspiration to all those whose life he touched. Dick always held firm to the highest professional standards and ethics. Our Association was blessed to have him as our President in those early years. Past, present and future probation officers are and will be forever indebted for his work and accomplishments in behalf of the Association. The concept of the Doyle Award had been suggested by Al Wahl and discussed in 1963 at the Executive Board meetings. FPOA President William Woodard appointed John C. Carbo as chairman of a committee to develop the full purpose and guidelines for the award. The committee included:
John C. Carbo, GA/N.
W. Foster Jordan, AL/N
Walter Evans, OR
William G. Zastrow, WI/E
David J. Hurley, PA/E
Burrell G. Kilmer, MD
Howard N. Scott, OK/N
The committee work began on October 9, 1963 and carried through to the following spring. The April 1964 Association Newsletter announced the award and set a July 15, 1964 closing date for nominations. There were numerous nominees proposed from the field, all outstanding figures. After a thorough review of all the candidates, however, the Award Committee unanimously selected one individual who exemplified all that the Doyle Award represented. He was Ben S. Meeker, Chief Probation Officer for the Northern District of Illinois.
On November 18, 1964 a Special Session of the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois was held by Chief Judge William J. Campbell sitting with the other Judges of the Court en banc. Richard F. Doyle, himself, was present as were a host of other dignitaries, and on this special occasion, the first Richard F. Doyle Award was conferred upon Ben S. Meeker. There were numerous references to Ben Meeker's accomplishments both in the year immediately preceding the presentation as well as in the past. His efforts in establishing the Association, in assisting the development of its Constitution and in publicizing the organization's necessity were preamble to additional achievements. He was part of the origination of the Probation Training Center in Chicago, Illinois; he developed procedures for creating a sentencing council, patterned after the Eastern District of Michigan; he initiated a joint research project between the Chicago Federal Probation Office and the University of Chicago to study factors in probation selection among defendants; he conducted a training institute for probation, parole and correctional personnel which was sponsored by the Maritime School of Social Work in Halifax, Nova Scotia.... the accomplishments continued on. Ben S. Meeker was the appropriate selection for the first Richard F. Doyle Award - and so would be each subsequent recipient, all outstanding officers in the field. A listing of all the recipients is contained in the Addenda following the history.
In 1978 a replica of the Doyle Award was presented to Professor A. Leo Levin, Director of the Federal Judicial Center, in a special ceremony. The plaque, which contains the names of all Award recipients, hung in a prominent Center location for all visitors to view. It was subsequently moved to the Office of Probation and Pretrial Services in the Administrative Office after the Center moved from the Dolly Madison House.
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