Two Editors, A Common Vision, and Several Changes

Abstract

It is with great excitement and much honor that we take on the role of co-editing the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology (JPCP), the official journal of the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology. We are excited because this co-editorship represents a new challenge for us and provides us with the opportunity to help shape the direction of the two major fields represented by this journal. We are honored because we have been asked to edit a journal that represents the opinions of all those remarkable people who conduct research in the fields of police and criminal psychology, many of whom are long-standing members of the Society. As is customary when assuming an editorship, we would like to discuss our vision of where we see JPCP going in the future and highlight some changes that can be expected during our term as co-editors. Before we do this, however, we would like to acknowledge the great job done by Alan Thompson during his term as editor and thank him and the rest of the Springer team for providing us with much needed guidance during the transition period. Thanks to these individuals, we have been able to get on top of things fairly quickly. With respect to our vision for the future, we have discussed this at length with each other, with Alan, and with Welmoed Spahr, our trusted publisher. Above all else, our primary goals with the journal will be to increase its visibility and to continually improve its quality. Significant advances in this direction have already been made, thanks to the hard work of Alan and Welmoed. Most notably, the journal is now being indexed with PsycINFO, which means that articles in the journal will be easier to find and easier to cite. Given the growing importance of citation counts for tenure and promotion decisions, we are sure that this recent change will attract researchers that did not previously consider publishing in the journal. Another clear way to increase the visibility and quality of the journal is to market it to a wider audience. This is something we have already begun. Notices have been sent to colleagues from around the world encouraging them to think about this journal as an outlet for their research. Similar messages have been included in newsletters and newsgroups belonging to brother and sister organizations. Face-to-face advertising has been done at workshops and conferences. We are confident that these efforts will make the journal more visible on the international stage and increase the number of manuscript submissions. Such marketing efforts should also help to ensure that the journal continues to publish high-quality pieces of research. In our view, one of the most important things that we must do to ensure that authors think seriously about JPCP as an outlet for their research is to continue paying close attention to turnaround times; that is, the time it takes between submitting a manuscript and receiving an editorial decision. For all sorts of reasons, a short turnaround time is desirable and it is critical if we are to be a competitive journal. Compared to many journals, JPCP has always had a relatively short turnaround time, but we are committed to improving this further. As discussed below, this will be accomplished in large part by expanding the number of reviewers used by the journal, by making sure that C. Bennell (*) Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: craig_bennell@carleton.ca