Editorial

Welcome to Volume 22 of Police Quarterly (PQ). It has been some time since my last editorial, so what follows is a brief restatement of journal policies and an update on recent developments and trends affecting the journal. Editorial policies remain essentially unchanged and are as follows:

Scholarship must be original and should invoke the scientific method. PQ is a scholarly journal that publishes empirical studies on issues related to policing. Traditional social scientific methods and reporting practices are preferred.

Papers must have clear policy relevance, and authors must devote careful attention to them. As always, a sizable portion of PQ’s readership consists of law enforcement executives, so the research must be of interest to—and hopefully useable by—practitioners working in the field.

The journal generally does not publish descriptive studies and think pieces. It also refrains from publishing perceptions-oriented research (e.g., citizen perceptions of police), focusing instead on the actual and the applied.

Also consistent with past practice, the journal makes liberal use of desk rejections. This is done for two reasons, namely to speed up the review process and ensure reviewers’ valuable time is spent reading papers with the greatest potential for publication.

In terms of changes, the journal has since 2010 benefitted from an impact factor. The 2017 impact factor was 1.865; the 5-year impact factor was 2.283. By both measures, PQ is the ranking policing journal. What is more, it ranked 20th out of the 61 journals in the 2017 Criminology and Penology category.

Another change I have observed is that it is getting more and more difficult to secure reviews. For every one reviewer who agrees to evaluate a paper, three to five (and sometimes more) decline. In response, I have had to cast an ever wider—and often interdisciplinary—net to secure reviews.

The volume of submissions has also surged. When I began as Editor, approximately 40 papers came in each year. We now receive nearly 200 each year. Fortunately, I was able to secure a few more pages in each issue, but there is still not enough room to publish even the most favorably reviewed papers. Indeed, I can only accept for publication approximately 20 papers per volume. The rejection rate thus hovers around 90%.

Another change pertains to editorial deliberations. It used to be that reviewer feedback and general fit were the only considerations bearing on whether a paper would be published. Now, for better or worse, I have to consider citation potential. A paper that is not well-aligned with the journal’s historical content or fails to situate itself within the mainstream policing literature will not likely find a home in PQ. This is an important point that befuddles some authors whose work is well-received yet rejected.

A Note of Thanks

I want to offer a heartfelt thanks to the many reviewers who assist in making PQ what it is. I also want to thank my editorial board members for their valuable assistance. And last, thanks to all my managing editors over the years, most recently Jennifer LaPrade. All of your efforts are appreciated more than you will ever know.

In closing, please feel free to contact me with questions and concerns. And if you are not already a reviewer and are interested in assisting, please let me know. We are always in need of qualified individuals to assist!