Editorial

It is a great honour to take over as editor-in-chief of Current Issues in Criminal Justice (‘CICJ’). Since its establishment in 1989, CICJ has a history of critical engagement with crime, law, and justice, from local, national, and international perspectives. I come into this role with the journal in a very strong position – thanks to the efforts of my predecessor, Dr Justin Ellis, who remains on board as deputy editor. Justin held the editorial reins for 3 years, during which time CICJ went from strength to strength. CICJ’s CiteScore is now 2.5 (up from 1.1), putting us in the Q1 quartile. Full text downloads for 2023 were 135,603 (up from 115,357 in 2022); submissions have increased from 49 in 2021 to 141 in 2023; median days to first decision dropped from 30 days in 2022 to 14 days in 2023, while median days to final decision dropped from 35 to 18; 24% of our articles were open access in 2023; and Justin expanded the membership of the editorial board. Thank you, Justin, for all your hard work and continued involvement with CICJ. And a personal thank you from me for your support, advice, and encouragement during the handover.

At this point, I should say some brief words about myself. I am a professor at Sydney Law School, having moved to Australia in 2023. Before that I spent 14 years in the UK (Leeds, Manchester, Sussex, London), after completing my PhD in Limerick, Ireland. My research focuses on financial crime, including money laundering, proceeds of crime, and deferred prosecution agreements. I am also interested in criminal evidence, particularly wrongful convictions. CICJ has a long tradition of publications in my research areas and I look forward to reading more in the years to come.

CICJ is, of course, the journal of the University of Sydney’s Institute of Criminology which was established within Sydney Law School in 1966. And we are delighted to have one of the original members of the Institute on our Board, Professor Duncan Chappell, who established and taught some of the first courses in criminology in Australia. We are also grateful to the Institute Directors and members for their continued support of CICJ. We are especially grateful for the continued support of the Paul Byrne Memorial Fund (indeed, Paul Byrne published an article in the very first issue of CICJ: Byrne (1989)). We are also grateful for the support of Sydney Law School, which has generously agreed to sponsor an annual criminal justice workshop, with the first one to take place in 2025.

Three decades on

Thirty-five years on from the first issue, how much has changed in ‘current issues in criminal justice’? In its earliest volumes, CICJ included articles on, inter alia, evidence law (and reform) (Kable, 1989); policing agencies (Robberds, 1990; Strong, 1990); anti-corruption (Findlay, 1990; Zervos, 1989); and pornography (Thornton, 1989). Similar issues persist today and continue to be explored in this journal; for example, policing remains at the forefront of research (in the context of police complaints, see Prenzler & Maguire, 2023, and for police oversight, see McCulloch & Maguire, 2022), as do different areas of sexual exploitation (see Horan & McKimmie, 2023; Mason, 2023); there are ongoing considerations of evidence law (including wrongful convictions (Hamer, 2023) and special measures (Deck, 2022)); and financial crime continues to be challenging (Crofts & van Rijskijk, 2023). ‘Censorship’, morals and criminal law also continue to be areas of concern, notably in the context of drill music to give one example (Lee et al., 2022).

While there has been vast change over the past 35 years, a lot of the same foci remain. Indigenous (in)justice is an obvious example (Cunneen et al, 2021), to the extent that – in a review of Cunneen and Tauri’s (2016) Indigenous Criminology – Porter (2019) asks whether the discipline of criminology has failed Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous women in particular (see Cripps, 2023). Violence against women is a longstanding concern: writing in the first issue of CICJ, Thornton (1989, p. 151) said ‘The use of the law is problematic for women. The law has been obtuse about harms that have been done to women’. This narrative continues today, and is a main theme of many of the contributions to CICJ (see special issue guest edited by Chin et al. (2020)).

Of course, there are many areas of criminal law and justice that could not have been foreseen in 1989, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on crime and criminal justice (see the special issue guest edited by Hanley & Flynn, 2023). We encourage our authors to continue to challenge established thinking and also to explore new areas of interest in criminal justice practice and research.

Taking quality submissions on a rolling basis

The overriding focus for our reviewers and board members is the quality of the submission and its relevance to a wide range of readers, including academics, legal practitioners, law enforcement officials, members of the judiciary, and more. We have an excellent and supportive international Advisory Board, who I can call upon for advice and suggestions (and indeed already have done so). We have exceptionally supportive reviewers who take so much time and care when writing their reviews. Even if the ultimate recommendation after a rigorous process of double-blind peer review is not positive, I am delighted to see how constructive reviewers are to help the author(s) develop their argument further. Without our reviewers being so generous with their time and effort, CICJ would not be where it is now.

In addition to regular submissions, CICJ publishes ad hoc special issues. We consider proposals for special issues on a rolling basis and encourage you to contact the editor/deputy editor at an early stage or to discuss possible ideas.

Continuing the conversation

As criminal law, criminal justice, and criminology research moves with the times, so too must this journal. We are now on social media (on ‘X’ @CICrimJ) to highlight the excellent research published by our authors. Open access is another important development, and we expect more in this regard thanks largely to the work of CAUL (Council of Australian University Librarians). Although we evolve, we continue to stick to our focus on original, high-quality submissions that will be of interest to a wide audience. We continue to publish academic and practitioner work, contemporary comments and longer research articles, as well as book reviews. We encourage submissions from a range of disciplines. We particularly welcome submissions from postgraduate and early-career researchers. And if you have an enquiry about CICJ or whether there might be interest in your work, please do get in touch: [email protected]