NCJ Number
186683
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Education Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Dated: Fall 2000 Pages: 237-249
Date Published
2000
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This study explored the productivity of African-American scholars in the field of criminology during the period of 1987 through 1998.
Abstract
The study relied on the research technique of content analysis, which involves researchers in examining a class of social artifacts, typically written documents. A sample of 27 criminology/criminal justice journals was randomly selected from a list of 133 journals found in an article authored by Michael S. Vaughn and Rolando del Carmen in 1992. The identification process was facilitated by a master list of African-American criminologists produced by the researchers. The tables of contents of each volume, for 27 journals published from 1987 to 1998, were reviewed for purposes of identifying African-American authors. The sample of journals used in the study was diverse, as it represented various areas of criminology and criminal justice, including both theory-based and applied journals. The primary finding of the study is that African-American academic productivity, as measured by the number of publications in scholarly journals, is not representative of African-American scholars in the field of criminology and criminal justice. Reasons for this under-representation include several factors, ranging from reservations about the professional behavior of journal editors to issues associated with whether or not the review process is fair and blind to the race of the author. Other factors in this under-representation may be the lack of mentoring while in graduate school and beyond, as well as editorial resistance to the subject matter of work by African-American scholars. 3 tables and 23 references