Criminology And Criminal Justice Research Articles

“A Content Analysis of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences’ Presidential Address, 1993-2022: A Qualitative Exploration”

Prominent sociologists and criminologists have not accorded the respect that criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) deserves. They have questioned CCJ’s standing as an autonomous discipline; they have criticized CCJ for its lack of a “common conceptual language,” a “core theoretical tradition,” and a “methodological commitment.” Consequently, criminologists and criminal justice scholars have been warned not to stray too far from their sociological roots. This condition leads to the following question: are there new ideas about crime and justice that are contained in the annual addresses of ACJS presidents? This article examines the addresses delivered by the presidents of ACJS. The findings indicate that three key domains of reflections can be discerned in the ACJS presidential addresses: (1) legitimacy through accreditation; (2) policy irrelevance as a prelude to public criminology; and (3) visions of justice. The three findings are compared and contrasted with the core themes found in a prior study of ASC presidential addresses.

Is Open Access Criminology Influential?

Open access is a hot topic throughout the sciences, including in criminology and criminal justice (CCJ), with increasing calls for accessibility of high-quality research for the public and policymakers. Yet, the question remains: How influential are open access publications? We use Altmetric data from 95 CCJ journals to examine whether the presence and level of open access corresponds with variations in three influence indicators: Altmetric Attention Scores, Twitter/X mentions, and news mentions. Results indicate that open access is positively associated with Altmetric influence, even at lower tiers of access.

Faculty demographics in criminology and criminal justice: a wider view

Large-scale analyses of the demographics of postsecondary students and faculty in the United States have found that the student population has become quite diverse while faculty have not made the same strides. Unfortunately, knowledge about the demographic diversity of faculty that are specific to criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) has been based on surveys of CCJ organizations with general memberships and/or the faculty in a small sample of Ph.D. granting institutions. This study attempts to fill this void through a wide-scale analysis of the demographics of faculty in 726 universities and colleges in the United States that offer CCJ majors. Utilizing photographs of faculty along with all other existing information at our disposal, we found CCJ faculty to be slightly more diverse than what has been found in other recent analyses, although still well below the diversity statistics that are known about CCJ students.

Commentary: Academic Accreditation and Certification in Criminology and Criminal Justice Education: From Ricochets to Reckonings

This commentary provides additional depth and perspective related to the state of postsecondary educational standards in criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) discussed in Academic Accreditation and Certification in Criminology and Criminal Justice Education: From Ricohets to Reckonings. Elements of discussion include struggles between field demands and value in postsecondary education, conflicting institutional demands related to educational standards, and rising complications related to online learning formats and field support of professional organizations.The full breadth of CCJ postsecondary education and professional environments must be examined to determine the strongest path forward related to the overall support of educational standards.

Academic Accreditation and Certification in Criminology and Criminal Justice Education: From Ricochets to Reckonings

For over a decade, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) was the official source of criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) academic program review before its “certification” program was discontinued in 2018. Several certification standards and indicators have been modified, addressing concerns raised with earlier iterations of the ACJS Quality Standards. The pressing need for a revisit has become evident due to challenges such as the emergence of proprietary schools as well as institutional financial pressures resulting in continued under-resourcing of CCJ programs. This article delves into previous initiatives focused on the pursuance of accreditation and certification, highlighting critical milestones and contextual influences that have propelled these mechanisms to the forefront of CCJ education. We also explore the aspirations and future directions for program review, with a particular focus on program integrity, curriculum relevance, and the evolving needs of students and the criminal justice system.

Introduction to Special Issue on Remembering the 50th Anniversary of the ACJS Working Group on Criminal Justice Education Standards: The Past, Present and Future of CCJ Education

This Special Issue to remember the 50th Anniversary of ACJS Working Group on Criminal Justice Education Standards presents an array of different perspectives and views on Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ) education. It focuses on the past, present, and future of CCJ education, ACJS Program Endorsement, Certification, and Accreditation. The contributors emphasize that CCJ educational standards are vital to the success of CCJ programs and to provide students with a high quality of education. The authors in the Special Issue are leading experts in CCJ education.

Commentary: Quality Standards for Criminal Justice Education: The Long and Winding Road

In this commentary, the author focuses on article “Quality standards for criminal justice education: The long and winding road.” The author draws on his extensive background in criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) education, including various roles within the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) and the Southern Criminal Justice Association (SCJA), to provide insights into Albanese and Tartaro’s article and its implications. Specifically, Albanese and Tartaro trace the evolution of CCJ education, highlight efforts to establish quality standards, such as the Northeast Minimum Standards model later adopted by ACJS. They discuss the challenges and eventual discontinuation of the ACJS Certification program, but they conclude with positive discussion on the emergence of the ACJS Endorsement program. The commentary emphasizes the importance of quality standards in CCJ education, despite the difficulties in establishing and maintaining them. The commentary concludes with a call to continue prioritizing quality in CCJ education.

Gender, Race, and Authorship in Criminological and Criminal Justice Journals: A New Look With an Old Result

There is a wealth of research that has tested faculty productivity in criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) journals over the past 30 years, although only a modest proportion of these studies have analyzed the gender of authors publishing in CCJ journals. Moreover, only a couple of studies have assessed the race of the authors in these journals, with their focus placed on either African American productivity or the comparison of non-White and White authors. The present study examines 1,836 journal articles in 14 journals from 2016 to 2018, including the top eight CCJ journals, the top three sociology and psychology journals, and the top three gender-focused journals in the area of crime and justice. We broke author productivity in these journals down by specific demographic categories and found that White men account for the majority of authors publishing in the CCJ journals, followed by White women. We also found that the advances for women authors found in some journals are primarily due to White women authors, as the production of all minority groups in the journals remains low regardless of gender.

Commentary: Toward a Cognitive Criminological Future

In Toward a Cognitive Criminological Future, the authors describe the criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) divide, discuss efforts to bridge this gap, and offer “cognitive criminology” as a solution. I highlight additional reservations about “evidence-based” and other back-end approaches to link criminology and criminal justice. I argue instead that gains can only be made by bucking current educational approaches in graduate programs that emphasize specialized “publication training” and discourage holistic reading of classic and contemporary scholarship and comprehensive knowledge attainment. I further suggest a re-evaluation of disciplinary priorities that reward quantity over quality and call instead for an emphasis on the breadth and significance of knowledge contributions. Finally, I suggest that “cognitive criminology”—rooted in business-as-usual positivism—is unlikely to promote the change necessary to address the CCJ divide but is simply going to result in half-baked attempts to measure agency and other cognitive variables to add to regression models.

Commentary: Criminology and Criminal Justice Education and the Search for Quality: Then and Now

Prospects for the ACJS “Quest for Quality in Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ)“ should be understood in light of three contextual forces: changes in faculty training and orientation, dynamics affecting higher education generally, and similarities between CCJ and other social science programs. Many of the original objectives of the “Quest” have been achieved, and the fact that the ACJS process faces an uncertain future is unlikely to undermine the continuing advancement of CCJ programs.

An Examination of Article Productivity and Influence among Criminology and Criminal Justice Doctoral Faculty, 2015–2021

Faculty productivity and influence constitute an important aspect of doctoral program quality. Literature on faculty productivity of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ) Ph.D. programs has not yet properly weighted the impact of journal publications in a standardized and objective manner, limiting their analyses to select CCJ journals or the CCJ discipline. This is problematic because CCJ is an interdisciplinary field, and many criminologists publish in highly influential non-CCJ journals. While past assessments have largely neglected citation-based data, the present study analyzes scholarly productivity for the years 2015 to 2021 using a more comprehensive and inclusive method for assessing influence. Based on this study’s productivity measure, the top programs are Florida State University, Pennsylvania State University, Arizona State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Cincinnati. Findings are situated with prior research and the latest U.S News and World Report rankings.

What’s in Your File Drawer? The Case of the Missing Null in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Analysis of scholarship in the physical, biological, and social sciences has discovered that peer-reviewed journals publish a much larger proportion of articles with statistically significant findings compared to articles with null results. Publication bias in criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) has received very little attention, however. The current study is an exploratory analysis of research in leading CCJ journals across 2 years to determine the current state of null findings in contemporary CCJ scholarship. Our findings are consistent with studies in other disciplines; null results are rare in leading CCJ journals. We explore the context of our findings, outline the importance of examining publication bias to improve CCJ research and better inform policy, and discuss the limitations of our approach.

In Their Experience: A Review of Racial and Sexual Minority Experience in Academe and Proposals for Building an Inclusive Criminology

Feminist criminologists were pioneers in highlighting that academics’ standpoints (i.e., their social and societal positionalities) influence which “objective” truth they tell. Testimonies, the sharing of one's story, can provide important angles to our understandings of social phenomenon, including of life in the academic sphere. In the present work, we introduce our conceptualization of “inclusive criminology” as a framework for integrating criminological inquiry into a cohesive whole which asserts societies’ rights to valid and complete knowledge as requiring inclusion of previously marginalized identities. In response to this requisite, we conduct a review of published testimonial narratives within criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) as well as a sample of works from other social sciences to inform recommendations on how to meet this inclusive aim.

Publication bias: A “bird's-eye view” of meta-analytic practice in criminology and criminal justice

ObjectivesThe aims of the current study were 2-folded. This study examined the recent meta-analyses in the criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) field to capture a snapshot of the current state of publication bias practices and provided practical guidelines and recommendations on how to address the issues of publication bias in meta-analytic reviews. MethodsThe content analysis reviewed 64 meta-analyses published in top-tier journals in the CCJ field in 2019–2020. The narrative review of previous simulation studies in medical science and psychology fields was performed to synthesize practical guidelines on publication bias in meta-analyses. ResultsRecent CCJ meta-analytic studies have at least partially addressed the issue of publication bias by employing systematic search and statistical methods. However, the current state of CCJ meta-analyses does not meet the expectation required in medical science and psychology that all meta-analytic reviews report the range of effect size estimates across multiple publication bias detection and correction tests. The statistical methods commonly used for assessing publication bias are applied without testing and interpreting assumptions about the missing studies. ConclusionsThere is a need to continue monitoring the quality of meta-analyses to gain a comprehensive picture of how bias leaves a potential imprint in CCJ research.

Critical Criminology and Race: Re‐examining the Whiteness of US Criminological Thought

AbstractRace and racism are defining features of criminal justice systems in the United States. Race is also a defining feature of criminological theory. There have been robust efforts to address racism within theories and institutional practices pertaining to crime, law, and institutions of formal social control, but whiteness remains at the core of criminological knowledge production. The current article provides empirical support for showing how whiteness conditions the academic discourses of criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) in the United States. CCJ research plays an important role in discussions of racial justice and public policy. By studying the racialised (that is, white) nature of the CCJ research industry, we can better understand where critical criminology ‘fits’ in the broader struggle for social, racial and epistemological justice.

Experiences of Trans Scholars in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Trans individuals experience disproportionately high rates of victimization, discrimination and disparate treatment by the criminal processing system, as well as misrepresentation by the media. The importance and validity of studying transgender people’s experiences in the criminal processing system is beginning to be highlighted in criminology and criminal justice (CCJ), while the experiences of trans academics—who are among those leading the push toward the amplification of this line of research—remain largely unexplored. The authors, four transmasculine scholars in CCJ, draw from auto-ethnographic methods to shed light on the experiences of trans scholars within the academy and, in particular, within CCJ. We highlight how being trans has affected our experiences in various capacities as academics. We conclude by presenting suggestions for transgender scholars and their cisgender colleague and administrator allies.

COVID-19 and Academia: Considering the Future of Academic Conferencing

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and measures taken to mitigate its spread have presented numerous challenges for academia. Conferences are one challenge for academia in a COVID-19 environment. The present study discusses the purpose of academic conferences and provides a case study of a virtual conference in criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) that occurred in November 2020. We extracted data from the virtual conference program, from data publicly available through CrimCon, and from a sample of 53 of the 96 panels that occurred. Using these data, we present information about conference attendance and participation. We found that there were 558 unique presenters across 318 presentations and roundtable discussions, and a total of 1,629 unique attendees over the course of the three conference days. While virtual conferencing solves some problems, it presents unique others. Important comparisons between virtual conferencing and in-person conferencing are provided.

A Case for the History of Criminology and Criminal Justice

The discipline of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ) encompasses the study of any issue associated with crime [...]

From Supporting Role to Front Stage: Shining a Spotlight on the Programmatic Features and Experiences of Master’s Degree Programs in Criminology and Criminal Justice

While criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) undergraduate programs serve the bulk of our students, much research within the field pays attention to Ph.D. programs and their faculty. Such focus at the polar ends of educational opportunities for those seeking higher education in CCJ leaves a gap in information on master’s degrees in the discipline. This research note describes the programmatic features and experiences of 34 programs and paints a picture of current master’s level education to guide program refinement and development and assist undergraduate students applying to CCJ master’s programs. Findings suggest there are a set of core courses offered across programs that often align with faculty expertise and students have varied culminating experience opportunities. There is also much productivity among graduate students who conduct research and publish and/or present their findings. The paper describes gaps in the literature and discusses suggestions for future research directions.

A Content Analysis of Qualitative Research Published in Top Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals from 2010 to 2019

With the growth of qualitative research within the fields of criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) it is important to examine discipline standards and expectations of how to collect and analyze qualitative data and to present research findings. Our aim here is to assess qualitative research published in 17 top CCJ journals during the period of 2010 to 2019. We found that the number of qualitative articles published in these years increased over the previous two decades; however, the relative percentage of all articles remained relatively stable. During this period, 11.3% of all articles in the 17 CCJ journals used qualitative methods. In addition, we provide general patterns related to methodology and to presentation of findings. The results give insights into discipline standards and expectations and points to substantive areas that are under-studied (e.g., victims) and to issues relating to methodological transparency.