About the Journal

The International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy is an open access, blind peer reviewed journal that seeks to publish critical research about common challenges confronting criminal justice systems around the world.

The global production of knowledge in the social sciences has been structurally skewed towards the Anglophone countries in the Global North (Connell 2007). Criminology as a field of knowledge, until recently, has had a highly selective focus on crime and violence in the large population centres of the Global North. The Global South is a concept that acknowledges the unequal relations of power that shape the lives of the current and formerly colonised, enslaved and dispossessed nations by imperial powers that dominated 9/10th of the world until recently (Carrington, Hogg, Sozzo 2016). It is not a geographic divide but an epistemological grid of power that has shaped social scientific knowledge.

The Journal is committed to cognitive justice (de Sousa Santos 2014) and as such aspires to democratise knowledge, bridge global divides and encourage the voices of those on the periphery to publish with the Journal. This includes scholars from diverse Indigenous and first nations peoples communities, as well as scholars from the Global North and South committed to cognitive justice.

Authors retain copyright and articles are licenced via Creative Commons to make published articles more readily available and useable. There are no APCs (Article Processing Charges). Authors can submit and publish at no cost.

The Journal invites 6-8000 word original submissions. Authors are asked to register, read the author guidelines, and agree to the ethics statement before submission. Peer review is usually 4-6 weeks. Please review Author Guidelines prior to submission.

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy is included in:

The International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy is supported by the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. The JournalSchhol  is published by QUT using Open Journal Systems (OJS), an open source software application for managing and publishing scholarly journals.

The Journal banner - The Roses March

In Oslo, Norway on 26 July 2011 around 100,000 people marched to mourn the slaughter of 77 victims murdered by Anders Breivik several days earlier. Most people at the event carried a single red or white rose. The crowd raised their flowers together to Crown Prince Haakon, who said that 'tonight the streets are filled with love' (https://sputniknews.com/world/20110726165392120/). Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg also addressed crowds in Oslo saying: ‘By taking part, you are saying a resounding “yes” to democracy’. He said this was a ‘march for democracy, a march for tolerance, a march for unity’, adding: ‘Evil can kill a person but never conquer a people’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14285020).

This sentiment is what our banner, of single roses held high, symbolises.

Acknowledgement

The Journal was co-founded in 2012 by Professor Kerry Carrington and was originally titled International Journal for Crime and Justice. The first Editorial details the curation of the Journal. Professor Carrington retired as Co-Chief Editor in 2022.  Her dedication to the inclusion of criminology research from the Global South is sustained by the Journal’s commitment to cognitive justice and open access.

 

References:

Carrington K, Hogg R and Sozzo M (2016) Southern criminology. British Journal of Criminology 56(1): 1–20. http://doi.org10.1093/bjc/azv083

Connell R (2007) Southern theory: The global dynamics of knowledge social science. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin

de Sousa Santos B (2014) Epistemologies of the south: Justice against epistemicide. Routledge