NCJ Number
161963
Date Published
1996
Length
36 pages
Annotation
The primary aim of this essay is to identify the most-cited scholars and most-cited works in the general volumes of "Crime and Justice: A Review of Research" between 1979 and 1993.
Abstract
The study also widened the search to identify the most-cited works on crime and justice subjects in the same years in the "Social Sciences Citation Index" (SSCI). In addition, the essay suggests methodological advances in citation analysis, using concepts developed in criminal career research. The authors distinguish between the prevalence and frequency of citations, introduce the concept of co-author citation, and discuss mathematical models of citation careers. Section I of the essay reviews the authors' previous citation research, determining the most-cited scholars in three major American criminology journals, three major American criminal justice journals, and three major international criminology/criminal justice journals between 1986 and 1990. Section II analyzes the most-cited scholars and most- cited works in "Crime and Justice" between 1979 and 1985 and 1986 and 1993. The most-cited scholars in all these analyses were Marvin E. Wolfgang, Michael J. Hindeland, and Alfred Blumstein. Section III identifies the most-cited crime and justice works in the SSCI between 1979 and 1985 and 1986 and 1993. The most-cited items were "Asylums" (Goffman, 1961) in the first time period and "Discipline and Punish" (Foucault, 1977) in the second. Section IV discusses the prediction of citation careers using mathematical models. Section V summarizes the conclusions and argues that citation analysis is useful in identifying individual authors, works, and topics that are influential during particular time periods and, hence, that it is useful in documenting the development of knowledge of crime and justice. 6 tables, 4 figures, and 136 references