There are very few current peer-reviewed journals specifically for (undergraduate, postgraduate taught and early stage postgraduate research) students and graduates in criminology, policing, criminal justice, law and allied subjects to publish their work in. We only know of two others: The Annual Review of Criminal Justice Studies and Contemporary Challenges: The Global Crime, Justice and Security Journal which each have a slightly different focus to us and to each other.

This means students may produce groundbreaking, exciting and challenging work and it is not entering into wider public knowledge, particularly students who are from non-Western, decolonial, queer, feminist and other marginalised backgrounds! 

Everyone involved in GJCJ values the quality of students’ work and the co-production of research with students. This is a stepping stone to the democratisation of knowledge, one of our core values and a priority across the social sciences, including criminology and allied subjects.

Additionally, many students and graduates are unaware of how academic publishing works and there is little explicit focus on the technical skills of academic writing for publication embedded in the curriculum.

GJCJ addresses these gaps. It presents a publicly accessible resource and a promotional tool for students to showcase original, creative and excellent quality research. Our aim is to make it sustainable and progressively led by the interests of the next generation of criminologists.

Our aims and vision

• We will promote student research.
• We aim to enhance public knowledge of small-scale research in the fields of criminology, policing, criminal justice, law and allied subjects.
• We support the development of student’s academic and employment related skills from across the globe.
• We seek to create a sustainable, online, peer-review journal for (undergraduate, postgraduate taught and early stage postgraduate research) graduates in criminology, policing, criminal justice, law and allied subjects free at point of submission and free to readers. 
• We want to be the go-to publishing site for high quality articles based on undergraduate, postgraduate taught and early stage postgraduate research student research work. 
• We aim to demystify the process of publishing academic work and make the process as easy and transparent as possible.

Our mission

• We work alongside students, graduates and non-academics helping them to develop their research work into journal articles which are peer reviewed.
• Through this process, we mentor new authors to navigate the journey to publication. 
• Our journal is available entirely open-access ensuring that as many people as possible can submit to us and that articles can be read by as many people as possible. 
• We create opportunities for ongoing internship positions for students in criminology and related disciplines to learn about academic writing, editing and marketing. 
•  We care about excellent research and therefore employ peer review. 

The Scope of the journal

• Research and articles based in a wide definition of Criminology and allied subjects
• The research we support is committed to and focuses on social justice, fairness, co-production and decolonisation in Criminology and allied subjects. 
• We offer online facilitated writing groups and online writing workshops throughout the academic year to provide ongoing support. 
• We enthusiastically embrace different, creative, and innovative research methodologies and writing styles.

Our values

We acknowledge that values are helpful action guiding norms, but that they ultimately need to be ‘lived out’ in practice. As a journal we actively work towards embedding and promoting our core values of inclusivity, diversity, advocacy for social justice, fairness, collaboration, creativity, the decolonisation of criminology and related subjects and the democratisation of academic knowledge in everything we do.  

We strongly welcome voices that bring direct personal experience to the forefront, disrupting systemic assumptions and prejudices about knowledge within the academic system. We recognise the inherent power of language and therefore emphasise its mindful and sensitive use.

We strive in our practice to promote our core values through:

•  Adaptability and Openness: The world of academic publishing is dynamic, evolving and innovative. If you are open and excited by exploring new ideas and strategies to advance knowledge, we will be delighted to work with you in creative ways to help you achieve your publication goals. We would be happy to discuss accessibility options to enable you to publish with us. We are open to any and all (ethical) methods of data collection that lead to publishable outputs.
• Transparent Communication: Effective transparent communication is essential. We seek to be open, fair and collaborative in how we communicate with our stakeholders at various levels. This means we actively pursue diversity and inclusivity among the academics that work with GJCJ, we commit as a team to collaboration and to mutual respect. We will be transparent in setting expectations around publication  and commit to democratic and fair internal processes and compassionate communication about publication outcomes.
• Passion for academic writing and publishing: We all share a genuine interest in academic writing and publishing that advances the decolonialisation, social justice and democratisation of knowledge, encourage critical voices and lived experience accounts. 
• Horizontal and Ethical decision making: As we participate in decolonising the episteme and academe, we will work in a non-hierarchical manner which allows the contribution of all voices.

There may be times where you might feel that our practices do not align with our core values and we want to hear from people about such settings. We welcome your input as we commit to continued and ongoing reflection and reflexivity of our practices as a team. Should you have constructive feedback on our communications with you, we’d love to hear about it – please do get in touch .