Theoretical Criminology
Criminal Justice | Criminology & Criminal Justice (General) | Criminology (General)
Consistently ranked in the top 12 of its category in the Thomson Scientific Journal Citation Reports, Theoretical Criminology is a major interdisciplinary, international, peer reviewed journal for the advancement of the theoretical aspects of criminological knowledge.
The journal is committed to renewing general theoretical debate, exploring the interrelation of theory and data in empirical research and advancing the links between criminological analysis and general social and political theory.
The scope of the journal is broad and inclusive, embracing the wide diversity of thinking within criminology.
"Until the advent of Theoretical Criminology, we had no consistent forum for the exciting theoretical work that is revitalizing criminology around the world. Now we do. Theoretical Criminology has filled that gap admirably: there is nothing else like it in the field today." Elliot Currie
"[Theoretical Criminology has] published material of a high quality, with a number of articles standing out as original and challenging..." - Times Higher Education Supplement
"Theoretical Criminology is a unique catalyst for the advancement of criminological thought, an international meeting place for expanding and provoking new thinking about crime and justice in a rapidly changing world. This journal is an essential new addition to the global criminological library." John Hagan
"A first-class journal - with an international and interdisciplinary ambit - which takes seriously the role of theory, research, and politics in analysing crime, deviance, justice, and social control." Kathleen Daly
“Theoretical Criminology welcomes new proposals for its special issue, published annually. Please find the guidelines for these proposals here.”
Electronic access:
Theoretical Criminology is available to browse online.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Consistently ranked in the top 12 of its category in the Thomson Scientific Journal Citation Reports, Theoretical Criminology is a major interdisciplinary, international, peer reviewed journal. It is concerned with conceptual studies on narratives and myths of crime, punishment, social deviance, criminal law, morality, justice, gender, race, social regulation and governance. The journal is committed to renewing general theoretical debate, exploring the interrelation of theory and empirical research and advancing the links between criminological analysis and general social, political and cultural theory.
The scope of the journal is broad and inclusive, embracing a wide diversity of thinking within criminology. However, Theoretical Criminology is first and foremost concerned with the theoretical dimension of criminology. Generally, this means that the journal is more concerned with exploring, understanding, and critiquing the theoretical dimensions of criminological knowledge-making than with exercises in that activity. The journal welcomes contributions from the best work of all perspectives and traditions, Theoretical Criminology publishes papers that go beyond testing, evaluating, or integrating existing theories and is actively interested in extended discussions of the theoretical implications of such studies.
| Mary Bosworth | University of Oxford, UK |
| Leslie Paik | Arizona State University, USA |
| Maggy Lee | University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| Patrick Lopez-Aguado | Santa Clara University, USA |
| Piers Beirne | University of Southern Maine, Portland, USA |
| Colin Sumner | University of Sheffield, UK |
| Alpa Parmar | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Anne-Marie Singh | Ryerson University, Canada |
| Simon Cole | University of California, Irvine, USA |
| Katja Franko | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Bethan Loftus | Bangor University, UK |
| Laura Piacentini | University of Strathclyde, UK |
| Dominic Aitken | University of Strathclyde, Scotland |
| Ana Aliverti | Warwick University, UK |
| Vanessa Barker | Stockholm University, Sweden |
| Louise Boon-Kuo | University of Sydney, Australia |
| Michelle Brown | University of Tennessee, USA |
| Giuseppe Campesi | University of Bari, Italy |
| Eamonn Carrabine | University of Essex, UK |
| Anastasia Chamberlen | University of Warwick, UK |
| Lynn Chancer | Hunter College of the City University of New York, USA |
| Tony Cheng | Duke University, USA |
| Ben Crewe | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Brittany Friedman | University of Southern California, USA |
| Yanilda María González | University of Chicago, USA |
| Lirio Gutierrez Rivera | Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Medellin) |
| Sora Han | University of California, Irvine, USA |
| Laura Huey | University of Western Ontario, Canada |
| Manuel Iturralde | Universidad De Los Andes, Colombia |
| Beatrice Jauregui | University of Toronto, Canada |
| Insa Koch | University of St Gallen (Switzerland) |
| Susanne Krasmann | University of Hamburg, Germany |
| Aaron Kupchik | University of Delaware, USA |
| Sarah Lamble | Birkbeck University, UK |
| Matthew Light | University of Toronto, Canada |
| Travis Linnemann | Kansas State University, USA |
| Ian Loader | University of Oxford, UK |
| Shadd Maruna | Queens University Belfast, UK |
| Eugene McLaughlin | City University London, UK |
| Sanja Milivojevic | University of Bristol, UK |
| Lisa Miller | Rutgers University, USA |
| Vanessa Panfil | Old Dominion University, USA |
| Wenona Rymond-Richmond | University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA |
| Sveinung Sandberg | University of Oslo, Norway |
| David Sausdal | Lund University, Sweden |
| Richard Sparks | University of Edinburgh, UK |
| Forrest Stuart | Stanford University, USA |
| Chan Suh | Chang-Ang University, Korea |
| Leila Ullrich | University of Oxford, UK |
| Marion Vannier | University of Manchester, UK |
| Leanne Weber | University of Canberra, Australia |
| Alison Young | University of Melbourne, Australia |
Theoretical Criminology
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tc to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Theoretical Criminology will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplementary material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 SAGE Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Theoretical Criminology, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
“Theoretical Criminology welcomes new proposals for its special issue, published annually. Please find the guidelines for these proposals here.”
Theoretical Criminology is a major interdisciplinary, international, peer reviewed journal. It is concerned with conceptual studies on narratives and myths of crime, punishment, social deviance, criminal law, morality, justice, gender, race, social regulation and governance. The journal is committed to renewing general theoretical debate, exploring the interrelation of theory and empirical research and advancing the links between criminological analysis and general social, political and cultural theory.
The scope of the journal is broad and inclusive, embracing a wide diversity of thinking within criminology. However, Theoretical Criminology is first and foremost concerned with the theoretical dimension of criminology. Generally, this means Theoretical Criminology is more concerned with exploring, understanding, and critiquing the theoretical dimensions of criminological knowledge-making than with exercises in that activity. While the journal welcomes contributions from the best work of all perspectives and traditions, in general Theoretical Criminology will usually not publish work that merely tests, evaluates, or integrates existing theories. Likewise, the empirical details of criminological studies should be published in other criminological journals; Theoretical Criminology is actively interested in extended discussions of the theoretical implications of such studies.
Manuscripts must be a minimum of 7,000 words and a maximum of 10,000 words, including notes and references. However, ideally, the length should not normally exceed 8,000 words. Papers should be as short as is consistent with clear presentation of the subject matter.
The SAGE Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. SAGE Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
SAGE does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication.
Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
• The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors
• The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper
• The author has recommended the reviewer
• The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, SAGE reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
Theoretical Criminology requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Theoretical Criminology encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.
SAGE is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the SAGE Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Theoretical Criminology and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the SAGE Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. SAGE’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the SAGE Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Theoretical Criminology offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit SAGE’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from SAGE after receipt of your accepted article.
Theoretical Criminology does not currently accept supplemental files.
Theoretical Criminology adheres to the SAGE Harvard reference style. View the SAGE Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the SAGE Harvard EndNote output file.
If the manuscript contains links to internet content other than journals, please provide a persistent link if available. If one is not provided, the editors will create a persistent link using Perma.cc.
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using SAGE Language Services. Visit SAGE Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Theoretical Criminology is hosted on SAGE Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tc to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
Each submission will be refereed anonymously by at least two referees. Authors should provide a title page containing the title only. It should be anonymous, and should not include any names, affiliations, mailing addresses, e-mail, or phone numbers, etc.
The title should indicate exactly, but as briefly as possible, the subject of the paper. An abstract of 100-120 words should precede the main text, accompanied by up to 5 key words and a biographical note of 25-50 words.
Theoretical Criminology employs a system of rigorous editorial screening. Only manuscripts with a reasonable chance of publication in the journal are submitted for formal, independent peer review. Manuscripts deemed not to have a reasonable chance of publication because of fit or quality are screened out within two weeks, so that authors may submit their manuscripts elsewhere. Those manuscripts submitted for peer review will be reviewed by two or more independent and internationally representative reviewers for academic merit, readability and interest. Please be aware that, due to high number of submissions, the editors are unable to provide detailed comments on manuscripts that are screened out due to fit or quality.
All papers must be submitted via the online system. If you would like to discuss your paper prior to submission, please refer to the contact details below.
Theoretical Criminology (editorialoffice.tc@gmail.com)
Leslie Paik, Arizona State University, USA
Mary Bosworth, University of Oxford, UK
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process SAGE is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the SAGE Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the SAGE Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
SAGE provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The SAGE Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Theoretical Criminology editorial office as follows:
E-mail: editorialoffice.tc@gmail.com
Leslie Paik, Arizona State University, USA
Mary Bosworth, University of Oxford, UK