Trends in Top Journals in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Abstract

How has publishing in the field of criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) changed over the last thirty years? Using a dataset combining information on all articles published in the “Big 5” CCJ journals from 1985 to 2017 with their Google Scholar Citations, we identify several key trends. There was an observable positive trend in the number of articles published per year since 1985. Similarly, the average page length and the total number of co-authors has increased over time. Older articles were cited more often than newer articles. This is expected, though notable peaks were observed for articles in Criminology (CRIM) and the Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency (JRCD). Poisson regression results indicate page length, the number of co-authors, and journal affiliation were significant predictors of the number of Google Scholar Citations. The five articles with the largest number of citations for each journal are featured.

Keywords:

• Citations
• productivity
• publications
• rankings

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wesley G. Jennings

Sean Patrick Roche, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Texas State University. His research interests include offender decision-making, policing, the impact of social technologies, and public opinion about criminal justice issues. He received his doctorate degree from the University at Albany, SUNY.

Danielle M. Fenimore, M.A., is a doctoral candidate in the School of Criminal Justice at Texas State University. Her research interests include quantitative methods, statistics, mapping and analysis, with specific focus on hotspot policing, environmental risk/protective factors of crime, guardianship in action, situational crime prevention, and advancing the study of harmspot analysis. She received her Master's degree in criminal justice from Radford University.

Wesley G. Jennings, PhD, is a professor and doctoral program coordinator in the School of Criminal Justice at Texas State University. In addition, he also has a Courtesy Appointment in the Department of Health Outcomes & Policy and is a Faculty Affiliate of the Institute for Child Health Policy in the College of Medicine at the University of Florida. He received his doctorate degree in criminology from the University of Florida.