NCJ Number
109341
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1987) Pages: 475-484
Date Published
1987
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Journals can be rated according to a number of subjective and objective criteria.
Abstract
The present paper uses citations of a journal as an index of objective rank. Previous work using this index had several flaws, including a reliance on a single source journal and a lack of adjustments for age and size to its raw citations scores. The present paper uses a longer list of source journals to tabulate citation counts and provides raw impact, age-adjusted impact, and impact factor scores for each of 26 criminal justice/criminology journals. In addition, this study found subjective ratings from previous research on criminology journals to be significant, although not strong predictors of the impact factor, one objective index of journal quality. Little evidence was found for the notion that journal rankings are a function of other variables, including age of the journal or sponsorship by a professional organization. (Publisher abstract)