Journal profile · Social Sciences-Law
Criminal Justice Ethics
ISSN 0731-129X · eISSN 1937-5948 · Taylor & Francis
Criminal Justice Ethics: subscription journal; APC charged, amount not published; 18 articles in 2025; indexed in Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Criminal Justice Ethics is published by Taylor & Francis. By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Criminal Justice and Penology, Criminal Law and Policy and Philosophical Ethics and Theory, together about 49.7% of its articles. Its main subfields are Sociology and Political Science and Law. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Criminal Justice Ethics addresses ethical issues arising in all of the contexts of criminal justice, exploring their conceptual, normative, and empirical aspects and the relations between them. Ethical issues concerning criminal justice require multi-disciplinary study and study that integrates theoretical, empirical, and practical concerns. One of the journal’s purposes is to enlarge and deepen the study of those ethical issues, publishing work that advances the discussions and arguments concerning both the formulation of the issues and the ways they are addressed. The cost, complexity, and importance of ethical issues concerning criminal justice are receiving heightened public attention and the attention of legislators and government overall. The journal is uniquely well placed to participate in, and contribute to the examination of questions concerning sentencing, criminalization and decriminalization, police practices, prosecutorial discretion, the collateral consequences of incarceration, the aims and justification of legal punishment and alternatives to it, and a host of related issues not just in the U.S. and the U.K., but globally. Criminal Justice Ethics is a forum for important comparative studies as well as in-depth studies of the issues in the context of one or another particular country. Criminal Justice Ethics is aimed at reaching a wide readership, including philosophers, criminologists in many different fields, sociologists, professors of law, political theorists, and others. In addition to articles the journal publishes full-length critical reviews of important books across the full range of relevant topical areas. Criminal Justice Ethics appears three times per year. Periodically, an issue is devoted to a single topical focus or to the work of one or another important scholar. Papers submitted for consideration as articles are subject to initial appraisal by the editor, and, if found suitable for further consideration, to peer review. All peer review is double anonymized, and authors are given extensive comments on their submissions. Editors work closely with authors with a view to helping them reach a broad and diverse readership.
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Social Sciences-Law
Editor-in-chief Jonathan JacobsPublisher website
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Criminal Justice and PenologySocial Sciences20.6%
- Criminal Law and PolicySocial Sciences16.5%
- Philosophical Ethics and TheoryArts and Humanities12.7%
- Criminal Law and EvidenceSocial Sciences7.9%
- Policing Practices and PerceptionsSocial Sciences6.6%
- Criminal Justice and Corrections AnalysisSocial Sciences6.2%
- Torture, Ethics, and LawSocial Sciences4.8%
- Legal processes and jurisprudenceSocial Sciences3.1%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
CiteScore quartiles (Scopus, June 2026 release)
| Subject | Quartile | Rank | Percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law | Q2 | 419/1162 | 63rd |
Scopus ranks journals by CiteScore within each subject: the 75th percentile and above is Q1, then a quartile every 25 points. A different system from the CAS zones.LetPub
JCR / CiteScore quartiles on the journal's website
- CiteScore Q2 · 2025
Publisher-reported: JCR figures are Clarivate's and CiteScore figures Scopus's to confirm; both are a different system from the CAS zones.Publisher website
Database indexing
ScopusLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
EBSCO, Criminal Justice Abstracts, EBSCO PublishingPublisher website
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 1.8LetPub ·
- CiteScore (publisher) 2025
- 1.8Publisher website ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.4LetPub ·
- SJR (publisher) 2025
- 0.4Publisher website ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 0.96LetPub ·
- SNIP (publisher) 2025
- 0.96Publisher website ·
- h-index
- 36OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 157OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 0.88OpenAlex ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 0%LetPub ·
Volume
- Downloads per year (publisher)
- 70,000Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 897 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 10 | 6 | 287 |
| 2025 | 18 | 8 | 240 |
| 2024 | 15 | 9 | 294 |
| 2023 | 16 | 7 | 295 |
| 2022 | 15 | 7 | 225 |
| 2021 | 20 | 7 | 330 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
- Peer review
- Double anonymous peer reviewPublisher website
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Subscription journalLetPub
A subscription journal: articles are read by subscription or purchase, and authors usually pay no publication charge.
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publisher website | Yes, amount not published | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
Article types accepted1
- editorialEditor Jonathan Jacobs - John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, USA Managing Editor Margaret Leland Smith-John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, USA C…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteOpen access, Peer review
- Open access Open access
Hybrid open access journal (Open Select); OA optional. Model summary
Criminal Justice Ethics is a hybrid open access journal that is part of the Taylor & Francis Open Select publishing program, giving you the option to publish open access. Publishing open access means that your article will be free to access online immediately on publication, increasing the visibility, readership, and impact of your research. Why choose open access? Increase the discoverability and…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review
Double anonymized peer review; authors receive extensive comments on submissions. Model summary
All peer review is double anonymized, and authors are given extensive comments on their submissions.
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- ISSN
- 0731-129X
- Electronic ISSN
- 1937-5948
- Society / sponsor
- John Jay College of Criminal Justice
- Latest issue on the website
- Volume 45, Issue 1 (2026)
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Criminal Justice Ethics
Which databases index Criminal Justice Ethics?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Criminal Justice Ethics is indexed in Scopus.
Is Criminal Justice Ethics open access, and what is the APC?
Criminal Justice Ethics is a subscription journal. APC charged, amount not published.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-25). Last updated: .