Author Guidelines

IJRC welcomes submissions by academics and practitioners alike who are involved in the study of rural criminology or with responses to rural crime. Prospective authors should contact the editors of IJRC concerning any questions about types of submissions for publication in the journal.

Submissions should be provided in Microsoft Word, double-spaced, with 1 inch (2.54cm) margins, left justification only, and no headers or footers. Endnotes should be appropriately numbered in the text using the ‘insert endnote’ functionality of Microsoft Word, with each notation placed at the end of the narrative. Citations and references should follow the formatting style of the American Psychological Association (APA 7). Articles should use American Psychological Association (APA) 7 style guide.

All figures, charts, graphs, and images should include alt text. Please consult the submission page for more information about writing and adding alt text to your manuscript.

Please contact the editors for questions about formatting and referencing style. A submission preparation checklist is offered below.

Article Types:

Editorial / editor’s introduction: each issue will include a short (not to exceed 1000 words) overview of the articles in the issue plus any other pertinent information that the editors judge to be of significance.

Articles

Full-length manuscripts focused on rural criminological theory and research are generally in the range of 6,000-10,000 words inclusive of references, tables, figures and appendices.

Research Notes

Shorter-length manuscripts of 3,000-6,000 words (inclusive of references, tables, figures and appendices) are generally more narrow in focus or report preliminary findings of research and emergent theoretical discussions regarding rural crime and rural criminology.

Policy and Practice: Notes from the Field

Manuscripts of 3,000-8,000 words (inclusive of references, tables, figures and appendices) are generally focused on crime reduction strategies and criminal justice policies for rural places. Manuscripts about the challenges of rural criminological research are also welcomed. Here, we also actively encourage practical insights from those outside of academia on innovations planned or being deployed to address rural offending and victimisation.

Reviews

Like articles, submissions of reviews for publication in IJRC are of two types. First, there are reviews of 1,000 – 3,000 words for a single book or other scholarly work. Second, reviews of two or more books or other multiple scholarly works are permissible so long as there is an explicit theme which unites the narrative. Reviews of multiple works should range between 3,000 and 7,000 words. Reviews of conferences, films, television documentaries and other sources about the context of rural crime, crime prevention and criminal justice policy are likewise eligible for publication in IJRC.

Creative and other scholarly works

This section allows for contributions which are of a more creative nature which might not fit in any of the other sections. Here you can think about photo essays, other forms of visual criminology, items that are teaching-related and so on. Images must be in .png or .jpg format and accompanied by a caption that describes the image in detail. All materials, including images, submitted must be in compliance with IJRC’s Copyright Notice. It is expected that submissions in this section will be between 1000 and 3000 words including image descriptions. Submissions in this section must conform with the aims and scope of the IJRC – that is, they must have a distinctly rural criminological focus. Submissions in this section will be editor-reviewed, either by the Journal’s editors and/or members of the Editorial Advisory Board.