Reexamining Criminal Justice “Star Power” in a Larger Sky: A Belated Response to Rice et al. on Sociological Influence in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Abstract

To assess scholarly productivity in criminology and the criminal justice sciences, Cohn, Farrington, and Sorensen (2005 Rice, S. K., Cohn, E. G. and Farrington, D. P. 2005. Where are they now? Trajectories of publication “stars” from American criminology and criminal justice programs. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 16(2): 244–264. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 11, 35–48) and Rice, Cohn, and Farrington (2005 Rice, S. K., Cohn, E. G. and Farrington, D. P. 2005. Where are they now? Trajectories of publication “stars” from American criminology and criminal justice programs. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 16(2): 244–264. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 16(2), 244–264) identified cohorts of research “stars” who both graduated from criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) doctoral programs from 1988 to 1997 and authored frequent journal publications. Since stardom’s threshold criterion was a criminology or criminal justice PhD, sociology PhDs were categorically excluded. This operationalization problematically excludes and marginalizes sociology graduates specializing in crime, deviance, and law. The current study assessed the relative influence of sociology and CCJ doctoral programs on CCJ via publication measures drawn from an integrated cohort of prolific sociology, criminology, and criminal justice PhDs. Replicating aspects of Rice et al.’s (2005 Rice, S. K., Cohn, E. G. and Farrington, D. P. 2005. Where are they now? Trajectories of publication “stars” from American criminology and criminal justice programs. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 16(2): 244–264. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) methodology, this study updated productivity numbers, expanded journal analysis from 20 to 70 criminology and criminal justice journals, and calculated weighted rankings, following Sorensen, Snell and Rodriguez (2006 Sorensen, J., Snell, C. and Rodriguez, J. J. 2006. An assessment of criminal justice and criminology journal prestige. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 18(1): 297–322. [Google Scholar], Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 17(2), 297–322). The super cohort’s relative rankings suggested that sociology PhDs have remained influential in criminology and criminal justice.

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