Scholarly Influence in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals in 1990–2005

• Author: Ellen G. Cohn,David P. Farrington
• Published date: 01 September 2012
• Date: 01 September 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734016812450025
• Subject Matter: Articles

Scholarly Influence in

Criminology and Criminal

Justice Journals in 1990–2005

Ellen G. Cohn

1

and David P. Farrington

2

Abstract

This research investigates changes in scholarly influence by identifying the most-cited scholars and

their most-cited works in 20 journals: Five American criminology journals, Five American criminal

justice journals, Five international criminology journals, and Five international criminal justice jour-

nals. Results obtained in 2005 were compared with previous findings in 2000, 1995, and 1990.

Exactly the same methods and journals were used in each year. In 2005, the most-cited scholars

were Robert J. Sampson in American criminology journals, American criminal justice journals, and

international criminal justice journals, and David P. Farrington in international criminology journals.

Overall, Robert J. Sampson was the most-cited scholar in these 20 journals in 2005. He was also the

most-cited scholar in these journals in 2000, compared with Lawrence W. Sherman in 1995 and

Marvin E. Wolfgang in 1990. The most-cited works of the most-cited scholars included the theories

of Sampson and Laub, Gottfredson and Hirschi, and Moffitt, as well as the criminal career paradigm,

the effectiveness of correctional treatment, and evidence-based crime prevention. The authors con-

clude that these analyses reveal changes over time in theoretical concerns and policy issues.

Keywords

citations, scholarly influence, criminology, criminal justice

Introduction

The main aim of this study is to investigate scholarly influence by determining the most-cited scho-

lars in 20 Criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) journals of the United States and other major

countries of the English-speaking world (Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). The

research focused on one year (2005), but comparisons were made with previous analyses of the same

20 journals in 1990 (Cohn, Farrington, & Wright, 1998), 1995 (Cohn & Farrington, 1999), and 2000

(Cohn & Farrington, 2008). Citations in five American criminology journals, five American crim-

inal justice journals, five international criminology journals, and five international criminal justice

1

Department of Criminology, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

2

Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England

Corresponding Author:

Ellen G. Cohn, Department of Criminology, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA

Email: cohne@fiu.edu

Criminal Justice Review

37(3) 360-383

ª2012 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/0734016812450025

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journals were studied. Identifying the most-cited authors helps identify the most influential scholars

and topics during a particular time period, and thus helps document the most important fundamental

and policy issues in CCJ in different time periods.

Scholarly influence refers to the importance of a given scholar to the discipline, as well as to the

impact that a given work has on subsequently published research in the field. According to Meadows

(1974), one of the main assumptions in citation analysis is that citations indicate scholarly influence.

Essentially, if multiple researchers working independently on the same problem cite the same mate-

rial, that material is considered to have scholarly influence. If a scholar’s work is highly cited, it

suggests that others in the field find that scholar’s work important and valuable. Impact factors,

which are widely used to rank journals and evaluate scholars and institutions (Chew, Villanueva,

& Van Der Weyden, 2007), as well as to evaluate promotion applications and allocate research fund-

ing (van Driel, Maier, & Maesener, 2007), are based on citations.

It has been known for many years that citation counts are strongly correlated with other measures

of scholarly prestige, such as peer ratings of professional eminence, peer ratings of departmental

prestige, the receipt of the scholarly prizes including Nobel prizes, election to the presidency of pro-

fessional associations and elite bodies such as the National Academy of Sciences, numbers of pub-

lications, and even earnings (Cohn et al., 1998). The use of citation analysis to measure the prestige

and influence of individual scholars has become an accepted technique, and there have been a large

number of studies employing citation analysis that were designed to establish the most influential

scholars and works in CCJ (see e.g., Cohn et al., 1998; Wolfgang, Figlio, & Thornberry, 1978).

It is important to realize that the distribution of citations is highly skewed; researchers have found

that most scholarly articles are never or only rarely cited (Hamilton, 1990; 1991; Laband & Piette,

1994), while only a very small number are highly cited. Additionally, not all citations are of equal

importance to the citing scholar; as Chapman (1989, p. 341) stated, ‘‘Citation does not necessarily

denote approval.’’ While it is difficult to directly measure the relative impact of the individual works

cited by a given researcher, research does suggest that the vast majority of citations are positive or

neutral rather than negative (see e.g., Cole, 1975; Cohn & Farrington, 1994a; Garfield, 1979).

Previous Citation Research

This article builds on previous citation research investigating the most-cited scholars in a small num-

ber of major American and international CCJ journals. For 1986–1990, the most-cited scholars in

three major American criminology journals (Criminology—CRIM, Journal of Quantitative Crimin-

ology—JQC, and Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency—JRCD) and three major criminal

justice journals (Justice Quarterly—JQ, Journal of Criminal Justice—JCJ, and Criminal Justice and

Behavior—CJB) were determined (Cohn & Farrington, 1994b). The choice of these journals as the

major ones in CCJ at that time was discussed and justified in detail. The most-cited scholars were

Marvin E. Wolfgang, Michael J. Hindelang, Travis Hirschi, and Alfred Blumstein.

In order to investigate changes in influence over time, this research was repeated for 1991–1995,

using the same six journals (Cohn & Farrington, 1998a). The most-cited scholars during the second

time period were Travis Hirschi, Michael R. Gottfredson, Robert J. Sampson, and Alfred Blumstein.

It was then repeated for 1996–2000 (Cohn & Farrington, 2007a). The most-cited scholars in these six

journals during the third time period were Travis Hirschi, Michael R. Gottfredson, David P. Farring-

ton, and Robert J. Sampson. Most recently, this research has been extended to 2001–2005, revealing

that the most-cited scholars in these journals during the fourth 5-year time period were David P. Far-

rington, Robert J. Sampson, Travis Hirschi, and Francis T. Cullen (Cohn, 2011a).

Citations in four international criminology journals were also examined. For 1986–1990, the

most-cited scholars in the major criminology journals of the major English-speaking countries

(CRIM, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology—ANZ, British Journal of

Cohn and Farrington 361