Abstract
Background
As the official journal of the International Association of Correctional and Forensic Psychology (IACFP), Criminal Justice and Behavior (CJB) is a highly regarded outlet with a reputation for publishing theoretically grounded research that directly affects policy and practice in corrections and other criminal justice contexts. Through book reviews, readers are also introduced to new work that can be used in the classroom and in applied criminal justice settings. It is our privilege to celebrate the journal’s impressive 50-year history while simultaneously looking to the future of research and practice on correctional psychology and related issues. In doing so, we include the perspectives of five former editors, who were invited to respond to questions about their own editorial terms and about CJB more broadly. This approach was suggested by IACFP Executive Director Cherie Townsend, and we could not be more pleased with how the essays turned out. Subsequently, we describe key contributions from the nine peer-reviewed articles featured in this issue; all reflect research areas and methodologies that have been cornerstones of CJB. We conclude with an overview of developments in the current editorial term, outline future directions, and acknowledge the work of those who continue to facilitate the journal’s success.
We begin with a contribution from Stanley Brodsky, who founded the journal in 1974. Dr. Brodsky’s essay provides important historical context and is a wonderful reflection on the journal’s continued influence on the field. This is followed by Curt Bartol’s piece on his tenure with CJB, which includes 34 years of service in multiple capacities. Notably, Dr. Bartol presided over substantial increases in manuscript submissions and in the number of issues published per year, among other key developments that helped solidify CJB’s reputation as a premier journal. Next, Emily Salisbury reflects on both her own successful editorial term and the success of IACFP, who celebrated its 70-year anniversary in 2024. Dr. Salisbury not only shares her perspective on factors contributing to these milestones but also offers unique insights on critical issues for academic publishing more broadly (e.g., the increased use of Artificial Intelligence tools). Continuing in chronological order, Bob Morgan provides his thoughtful assessment of accomplishments during his term and the journal overall. Notably, Dr. Morgan’s editorial team advanced a number of operational goals that enhanced CJB’s overall efficiency. We then transition to Mark Olver’s essay, which takes us up until the current editorial term. Among other contributions, Dr. Olver highlights the journal’s continued emphasis on diversity alongside an increased focus on rigorous methods (e.g., meta-analyses). Taken together, these essays showcase CJB’s history and give us a point of departure for its continued quality and perseverance as a leading publication in correctional psychology.
Articles in This Special Issue
We now turn to the peer-reviewed articles chosen to celebrate CJB’s past and highlight future research directions. These articles were selected based on one or more of the following characteristics: (a) strong theoretical framework; (b) methodological rigor or innovation; (c) contributions to correctional policy and practice, especially regarding risk assessment; and (d) attention to diverse cultural contexts. Notably, several of the articles also emerged out of research partnerships between academic researchers and correctional practitioners; these types of collaborations have been a hallmark of work published in CJB, and we encourage such partnerships to continue. In addition, given CJB’s status as an international journal sponsored by an international organization, some of the articles were written by authors from outside North America.
As you will see from reading these pieces, there are several common threads. The first article by Arnull, Goss, and Heimer focuses on a population not yet criminally involved: at-risk, marginalized youth. The authors draw on unique data sources in the United Kingdom to examine interconnections between criminal justice and social service agencies, pointing to potentially overlooked areas for future interventions. In the second article, Olver, Lovatt, and Stockdale focus on a court-adjudicated sample of ethnoracially diverse youth in Canada. Their intersectional approach goes above and beyond standard predictive models, taking into account a variety of dynamic factors, and demonstrates the clinical relevance of psychopathy in this population. The third article, by Jones and Reisig, assesses the predictive accuracy of a juvenile risk assessment tool originally developed with samples of Ohio youth under correctional supervision. The authors use a sample of Arizona youth to examine the tool’s predictive accuracy and whether prediction varies across sex, race, and ethnicity. The findings suggest that specific domains can be targeted in the planning of differential interventions.
Next, we move to the adults at risk for justice involvement. Belknap and Wilson bring together data from two diverse groups: community-dwelling women and women incarcerated in Ohio prisons. Guided by a pathways approach—which compliments life-course criminology—the authors examine the influence of childhood victimization on a variety of outcomes (e.g., high school graduation and incarceration). Their results show particularly detrimental effects for Black women relative to their non-minority counterparts. Going beyond the community, the next article co-authored by Reale, Usman, and Rodriquez takes us to the adult prison environment. This topic is critical given the impact of prison violence and other forms of misconduct on incarcerated persons, correctional staff, and overall operations. Specifically, they find that participation in the Functional Literacy Program is associated with reductions in drug misconduct, while the Thinking for Change program is linked to reductions in assaults on staff and drug misconduct. In the next article, a collaboration by Botha, Nichols, and Polaschek, cross-cultural fairness of the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL: SV) is examined in a sample of European and Māori men incarcerated in a New Zealand prison. Their findings add to growing concerns about the cultural and psychometric appropriateness of risk assessment tools, and should be carefully considered in correctional practice.
The article by Blais, Hanson, and Harris is noteworthy for following up on an influential study published in CJB in 2000. In addition to the practical implications of the article, the methodological implications are salient in that they suggest that case–control and prospective cohort studies produce similar results. Another novel methodological approach—social network analysis—has been brought into corrections relatively recently, and is addressed in detail within Goodson’s article. This piece provides useful direction not just for future research on supportive networks in institutional and community corrections but also highlights how these approaches can supplement actuarial risk assessments. The issue concludes with a network-based application to correctional practice in Bant and Bogaerts’s article. They explore network structure and associations between risk and protective factors in a Netherlands-based sample of adult psychiatric patients. Taken together, the articles in this issue reflect an impressive collection of scholarship worthy of celebrating. We thank the authors for their contributions.
New Developments and Future Plans
In addition to reflecting on CJB’s past and highlighting recent scholarship, this 50th anniversary of publication is an ideal time to outline a path forward that will ensure continued quality and solidify its position as a leading publication in correctional psychology. Along those lines, we would like to mention some of the developments that have taken place since the start of our term in January 2024. Following recommendations from IACFP, internationalization is an ongoing focus of CJB. We have worked diligently to recruit manuscript submissions from outside North America, through avenues that include membership in international organizations and participation in international conferences. Relatedly, the size of our editorial board has more than doubled since the end of 2023, with an emphasis on increasing representation of scholars from non-North American countries and those from historically underrepresented groups. In addition, given that CJB’s target audience includes a large number of correctional practitioners, we have also increased editorial board representation of working professionals whose current positions and experience fall outside the traditional realm of tenure-track university faculty.
We also continue to uphold CJB’s dedication to integrity in all aspects of the publication process, a practice established in the journal’s formative years and followed consistently in subsequent editorial terms. This is demonstrated by adherence to the style and publication guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA) and through the journal’s membership in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). These connections signal to potential authors and reviewers that the journal places a high value on research ethics. We plan on expanding these practices by offering more guidance on peer review for graduate students and junior faculty. Finally, we have streamlined the aspects of the technical review process following conditional acceptance of manuscripts, reducing the time to production and appearance of articles in Online First. We hope that these practices will ultimately increase CJB’s scholarly impact.
A Note of Gratitude
As our esteemed predecessors have duly noted, it takes a village to ensure the success of CJB. First and foremost, we acknowledge the support of the International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology (IACFP) and are especially thankful for the guidance of Cherie Townsend and the entire Executive Board. We also thank Arizona State University’s (ASU) School of Criminology and Criminal Justice Director Dr. Beth Huebner and School staff for the administrative support, physical space, and marketing efforts that CJB requires. The transition from the past editorial team to ours was made considerably easier, thanks to the efforts shown by prior Editor-in-Chief Dr. Mark Olver, longtime Managing Editor Dr. Jaime Henderson, and editorial assistant Dr. Lexie Brown. We greatly appreciate their time, guidance, and patience as we began our new roles. In addition, we were fortunate that several members of the previous editorial team agreed to continue in their roles. These include Associate Editors Dr. Ashley Batastini (Swinburne University of Technology), Dr. Jennifer Eno Louden (University of Texas El Paso), Dr. Chantal Fahmy (The University of Texas at San Antonio), and Dr. Joe Schafer (Arizona State University), Book Review Editor Dr. Natalie Anumba (University of Massachusetts Medical School), and Statistical Consultant Dr. Daryl Kroner (Southern Illinois University). We are also grateful to be joined by Dr. Andrea Montes (Arizona State University), whose term as Associate Editor coincided with the start of our respective terms as Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor. Finally, none of our work could be accomplished without the support of the helpful team at Sage Publications.
Conclusion
There is much to celebrate in CJB’s 50-year history. For one, CJB is responsible for many early publications on women and girls. The first special issue at CJB was dedicated entirely to women and crime (Brodsky, 1974). As Annette Brodsky rightly notes, there was a need for “organizing the available knowledge about this population and fostering the continuing investigation of problems they cause and the difficulties they experience” (p. 299). Although the investigation of women and crime specifically has grown in the time since this 1974 call to arms, many (if not all) of the social problems CJB was a pioneer in publishing on remain today. Indeed, Belknap and Wilson’s article in this special issue and its focus on justice involved women in Ohio could be viewed as an answer to this 1974 call. Arnull, Goss, and Heimer’s study of at-risk youth mirrors that of what was termed “pre-delinquent preadolescents” in a 1979 CJB article (Glenwick et al., 1979). This is all to say, CJB remains persistent in continuing to advance our understanding of these long-standing issues within the field. Continuing research priorities of CJB include the topics presented in this special issue—women’s pathways and justice, experiences of historically underrepresented groups, validation of risk assessment tools among diverse populations, correctional programming, and rigorous and innovative methods, to name a few. At the same time, CJB will also remain at the forefront of new frontiers within correctional psychology and criminal justice. Emerging research priorities for CJB include, for example, technology in corrections, qualitative and mixed methods to compliment rigorous quantitative research, and connections to criminal justice adjacent agencies and services, all while advancing our representation of manuscripts from outside North America.
As founding Editor-in-Chief Dr. Brodsky notes in his essay, CJB has “grown up” and it has grown up well. Although we do not carry the responsibility of “raising” CJB in the same way, we understand our charge of maintaining the journal’s legacy while also continuing to innovate and explore new directions of correctional and criminal justice research. We are enthusiastic about the future of CJB. As we celebrate this milestone, we do so with deep respect for the editors who have shaped the journal’s legacy, whose vision and dedication have laid the foundation on which we continue to build.