1. Purpose of the Editorial Board

The primary purpose of the Editorial Board is to strengthen the journal’s scholarly reputation, academic quality, editorial independence and international standing. The Editorial Board advises on the journal’s development strategy, provides scholarly expertise to support editorial processes and promotes the publication of high-quality research consistent with the journal’s aims and scope. Collectively, the Board provides subject and methodological expertise across the journal’s research areas. Members may specialise in one or more of the following areas:

• criminological theories, causes and patterns of crime;
• crime prevention and evaluation of the effectiveness of prevention programmes;
• victimology, victim protection and restorative justice;
• juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice;
• criminal policy, law enforcement and the criminal justice system;
• the execution of sentences, probation, rehabilitation and reoffending;
• organised crime, corruption and economic crime;
• cybercrime and the criminological aspects of digital technologies;
• comparative and international criminology, including research on Uzbekistan and Central Asia;
• quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods, crime statistics and risk assessment;
• human rights, research ethics and data protection in criminological research.

2. Editorial structure

Responsibilities are distributed among Board leadership, editors, Board members and staff supporting editorial processes. Appointed individuals and their current roles are listed on the Editorial Board page. Deputy, coordinating, section and associate editor roles apply where these positions have been established; any combination of duties is formally recorded with due regard to decision-making independence and conflicts of interest. The Deputy Chair of the Editorial Board and the Deputy Editor-in-Chief are distinct roles; combining them requires a separate formal assignment of authority.

Chair and Deputy Chair of the Editorial Board

The Chair and Deputy Chair of the Editorial Board provide strategic, advisory and organisational support by discussing scholarly priorities, developing international cooperation and improving the quality of editorial work. Holding either position does not, in itself, authorise a person to make or overturn decisions on individual manuscripts, access all editorial materials or bypass peer review. If either person is appointed as a handling editor, all requirements of this policy apply to that person.

Editor-in-Chief

The Editor-in-Chief:

• provides overall leadership of the journal’s scholarly and editorial activities;
• protects editorial independence;
• determines the journal’s scholarly focus and development strategy;
• participates in selecting Editorial Board members and evaluating their contributions;
• decides on complex scholarly, ethical and procedural matters;
• holds final editorial authority to accept or reject manuscripts.

The Editor-in-Chief considers the recommendations of reviewers and handling editors and is responsible for the editorial process. In the event of a conflict of interest, the Editor-in-Chief is recused; an authorised independent editor makes the decision. A qualified external editor is engaged when necessary. The absence of the Editor-in-Chief or the delegation of authority does not remove the established peer review requirements.

Deputy Editor-in-Chief

Where this position has been established, the Deputy Editor-in-Chief:

• assists the Editor-in-Chief in managing the journal;
• coordinates editorial processes;
• handles manuscripts assigned by the Editor-in-Chief;
• performs assigned duties during the Editor-in-Chief’s temporary absence;
• contributes to developing and implementing journal policies.

Coordinating Editor

Where this position has been established, the Coordinating Editor:

• coordinates manuscript receipt and checks for technical completeness;
• manages administrative correspondence with authors, editors and reviewers;
• monitors peer review and editorial procedure timelines;
• maintains records of editorial documents, decisions and correspondence;
• contributes to the organisational preparation of journal issues.

The Coordinating Editor does not independently make a final decision to accept or reject a manuscript unless expressly granted the relevant scholarly editorial authority.

Section or Associate Editors

Where these positions have been established, Section or Associate Editors:

• handle manuscripts within their areas of expertise;
• select independent reviewers and oversee peer review;
• assess review reports and authors’ responses;
• provide the Editor-in-Chief with a reasoned editorial recommendation.

Editorial Board members

Editorial Board members:

• provide advice and expertise to support the journal’s scholarly development;
• participate in initial assessment or manuscript review in accordance with their authority and expertise;
• recommend qualified and independent reviewers;
• contribute to improving journal policies and scholarly priorities;
• represent the journal responsibly within the academic community.

3. Main responsibilities of the Editorial Board

Within their assigned authority, Editorial Board members:

• contribute to the journal’s scholarly focus and long-term strategy;
• periodically review the journal’s aims and scope;
• participate in the initial scholarly assessment of manuscripts when required;
• recommend qualified and independent reviewers;
• provide expert assessments of manuscripts within their areas of expertise and without conflicts of interest;
• offer scholarly and methodological advice on editorial matters;
• support the originality, relevance, methodological soundness and scholarly significance of publications;
• promote adherence to publication ethics, research integrity and journal policies;
• develop international scholarly cooperation and academic relationships;
• help attract high-quality manuscripts;
• propose special issues and thematic collections;
• contribute to the journal’s international visibility and scholarly reputation;
• regularly participate in Editorial Board meetings and consultations.

Internal assessment by a Board member or editor complements external expert review and does not replace the two independent external reviews required for acceptance of a research article under the Peer Review Policy. Double-anonymous peer review applies; the required external reviewers are not members of the journal’s Editorial Board or editorial team. Editorial Board membership does not entail an obligation to review every submitted manuscript. Nevertheless, each member is expected to make a regular and substantive contribution to the journal within their competence.

4. Editorial Board composition and member selection

As an internal requirement, the journal sets a minimum of five qualified editors and Editorial Board members in total within its active scholarly editorial team. Administrative and technical staff without a scholarly editorial role are not counted towards this minimum. Members are selected on the basis of:

• scholarly expertise relevant to the journal’s scope;
• an appropriate academic degree or equivalent professional experience;
• scholarly publications, research activity and demonstrated competence relevant to the journal’s subject areas and methods;
• peer review and editorial experience;
• commitment to research integrity and publication ethics;
• professional standing and academic integrity;
• capacity to participate regularly in the journal’s work;
• ability to contribute to diversity in represented countries, institutions, schools of thought, disciplines and career stages.

Appointments must ensure that the Editorial Board is not composed exclusively of representatives of one institution or a narrow academic group. International diversity is assessed through the number of countries represented and the actual participation of their representatives; institutions, schools of thought and methods are also considered. Listing an international member without actual involvement is not treated as substantive international cooperation. Official position, citation counts or the h-index alone do not provide sufficient grounds for appointment.

5. Appointment and consent

Before joining the Editorial Board, a candidate provides:

• full name;
• academic degree and academic title;
• professional position;
• primary institution and country;
• institutional email address;
• ORCID and links to a Scopus Author ID, Web of Science Researcher Profile or institutional profile, where available;
• information on scholarly activity and areas of expertise.

Each candidate must expressly consent to serving on the Editorial Board and to the publication of their professional details on the journal website. No person is included in the Editorial Board without prior consent.

Appointments are formalised under the journal’s governance documents following professional assessment of the candidate and agreement on their duties. The editorial office verifies identity, affiliation and ownership of the listed profiles, records consent, authority and conditions of participation, and introduces the new member to journal policies. The absence of an ORCID or a profile in a bibliographic database does not, in itself, exclude a qualified candidate.

6. Term of office and review of membership

Editorial Board members are appointed for the term specified in the journal’s internal governance documents. Their appointments may be renewed taking account of active participation, scholarly contribution, compliance with journal requirements and the journal’s current needs. The composition of the Editorial Board is reviewed periodically to ensure that it remains current, aligned with the journal’s scope, institutionally and geographically diverse, and supported by members’ actual participation.

7. Editorial independence and decision-making

The Editorial Board operates on the principles of scholarly impartiality, transparency, confidentiality and editorial independence. The journal’s founder and publisher, the Criminological Research Institute of the Republic of Uzbekistan, provides the organisational and financial conditions for its work. The Institute’s management authority does not substitute for the scholarly assessment of an individual manuscript.

Manuscript decisions are based exclusively on:

• scholarly quality and originality;
• methodological soundness;
• accuracy and verifiability of results;
• alignment with the journal’s aims and scope;
• scholarly and practical significance;
• compliance with publication ethics requirements.

An author’s position, academic title, institution, citizenship, ethnicity, gender, religion, political views or other personal characteristics must not influence an editorial decision. The owner, founder, publisher, funders, government bodies, commercial entities and other interested parties do not interfere in editorial decisions on individual manuscripts. Payment or waiver of article processing charges, coverage of costs from the Institute’s budget and the planned number of publications likewise do not influence editorial decisions.

Well-supported critical findings about government bodies, prevention programmes or the Institute itself are not grounds for rejection. When approached by organisational representatives, the editorial office examines specific scholarly, ethical or legal circumstances and does not require findings to be changed for the convenience of an interested party. Pressure on an editor is documented and referred for independent consideration.

8. Conflicts of interest

An Editorial Board member must disclose any actual, potential or perceived conflict of interest that could affect their editorial duties. A conflict of interest may arise from:

• recent co-authorship or research collaboration with an author;
• employment at the same institution;
• supervisory or mentoring relationships;
• personal or family relationships;
• financial interests;
• professional disputes;
• direct academic competition;
• involvement in preparing the manuscript or conducting the research;
• employment-related dependence or hierarchical reporting relationships;
• involvement in developing, implementing or evaluating a programme, institution or measure examined in the manuscript.

Conflicts are assessed before an editor is assigned and reassessed when new circumstances emerge. Recusal, replacement and delegated authority are recorded in the editorial records. Scholarly disagreement alone does not constitute a conflict of interest.

A conflicted member is excluded from handling the manuscript, selecting reviewers, participating in internal discussions and making the editorial decision.

9. Manuscripts by editors, Editorial Board members and Institute staff

The Chair and Deputy Chair of the Editorial Board, the Editor-in-Chief, other editors and Board members, guest editors and Institute staff may submit manuscripts to the journal. Their manuscripts undergo the same scholarly, ethical and peer review procedures as those of other authors. A manuscript authored or co-authored by any of these individuals:

• is handled by an independent editor who has no conflict of interest, employment-related dependence on the author or involvement in the research; if this cannot be ensured within the editorial team, an external editor is appointed;
• receives at least two substantive reports from independent external reviewers before a research article can be accepted; these reviewers must not belong to the journal’s Editorial Board or editorial team or work at the author’s institution;
• is assessed without the involvement of the person who is an author;
• receives no preferential treatment or unjustifiably accelerated handling.

An editor or Editorial Board member who is an author has no access to reviewer identities, confidential reports or internal editorial discussions beyond the information ordinarily provided to authors. Material features of the independent handling of an editor-authored article are stated in the published work without identifying anonymous reviewers.

To minimise editorial endogeny, the journal limits to 25% the proportion of published research articles in which at least one author is an editor, an Editorial Board member, or a reviewer for the journal. This is monitored for every issue, including separately for each of the latest two issues, in line with the benchmark in the DOAJ Guide to Applying.

The calculation counts research articles rather than authors; an article with several such co-authors is counted once. An issue containing six research articles may include no more than one article in this category. Non-research content is not used to inflate the denominator, and changes in role titles or Board listings are not used to conceal an author’s actual relationship with the journal. Employment at the Institute does not, in itself, amount to membership of the Editorial Board or editorial team; its effect on institutional diversity is monitored separately.

Compliance with the percentage limit does not replace independent handling. The same requirements apply to special issues, and guest editors’ articles are handled independently.

10. Confidentiality

Editorial Board members protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts, authors, reviewers, editorial discussions and unpublished information. They must:

• not share manuscripts with unauthorised persons;
• not use unpublished information for personal or professional benefit;
• not discuss manuscripts without the journal’s permission;
• not disclose confidential editorial information.

Access is granted only to the extent required for an assigned task and is restricted upon recusal or the end of an appointment. Membership does not authorise access to all manuscripts. Editorial decisions, appointments, consents and recusals are retained in protected records with restricted access; personal copies of confidential materials are not retained without justification.

Particular protection applies to information about victims, minors, prisoners, witnesses and interview participants, as well as criminal case materials and restricted information. Editors do not use their official positions to obtain materials that have not been made available for legitimate editorial consideration or disclose research data to third parties outside the proper procedure.

The duty of confidentiality continues after Editorial Board membership ends.

11. Use of artificial intelligence

Editors and Editorial Board members must not upload manuscripts, review reports, authors’ responses or confidential editorial correspondence to publicly accessible generative artificial intelligence systems or systems that do not ensure confidentiality. Generative artificial intelligence is not used to produce substantive scholarly assessments, analyse review reports in place of an editor, or generate recommendations to accept or reject a manuscript. Professional judgement is exercised by an authorised person. Secure tools approved in advance by the journal may be used solely for administrative or language assistance, subject to confidentiality, data protection and human oversight. Permitted use is recorded with the tool, purpose and human verification specified; routine use of automated tools by the journal is disclosed. An automated flag for text similarity or possible AI use does not, by itself, establish misconduct. Final responsibility always remains with the authorised editor.

12. Publication ethics and research integrity

Editorial Board members adhere to the following principles:

• fairness and impartiality;
• editorial independence;
• confidentiality;
• disclosure of conflicts of interest;
• respectful treatment of authors and reviewers;
• prevention of plagiarism and data fabrication or falsification;
• prevention of manipulation of peer review, authorship or citations;
• protection of the integrity of scholarly and editorial decisions.

When indications of misconduct are identified, a member reports them confidentially to the Editor-in-Chief or editorial office and preserves the available evidence. In their editorial capacity, members do not represent the journal to third parties or conduct an external investigation without an appropriate mandate. If the concern involves the Editor-in-Chief or the Institute’s management, it is referred to an uninvolved responsible person; an independent external specialist is engaged when necessary. This provision does not restrict good-faith reporting to competent authorities through established procedures.

For criminological research, consideration is given to voluntary participation, risks of coercion and harm, the basis for data access, protection of participants’ identities and the need for ethical approval. Official permission to access an institution does not, in itself, replace participant consent or another necessary ethical procedure. Board members do not demand unjustified citations, inclusion of their own names as authors or changes to research results.

13. Participation and performance assessment

Editorial Board members are expected to:

• respond to journal communications within a reasonable period;
• provide reviews or editorial advice where possible;
• notify the journal of changes to their professional details;
• participate in Editorial Board meetings and strategic discussions;
• comply with journal policies and ethical requirements;
• contribute regularly to the journal’s scholarly development.

Members’ participation and performance are assessed periodically in terms of the quality and timeliness of their expert work, adherence to independence and ethics, and contributions to the development of policies and scholarly scope. There are no requirements to secure a predetermined number of accepted articles, APC payments or citations to the journal.

On appointment, editors receive the necessary guidance on procedures, data protection and conflicts of interest. Policy updates are communicated to current members; training needs and workload distribution are considered when reviewing membership.

14. Termination of membership

An Editorial Board member may resign at any time by giving written notice to the editorial office. Unfinished matters are transferred to another authorised editor while maintaining confidentiality. The journal may terminate membership in cases of:

• prolonged lack of participation in the journal’s activities;
• repeated failure to respond to editorial communications;
• failure to disclose a conflict of interest;
• breach of confidentiality;
• breach of publication ethics or research integrity requirements;
• unauthorised statements on behalf of the journal;
• provision of false or misleading professional information;
• conduct that seriously damages the journal’s scholarly reputation;
• a mismatch between the member’s expertise and the journal’s current needs.

A decision to terminate membership must be reasoned, fair and reached through a process free from conflicts of interest. The member is informed of the grounds and given an opportunity to respond. Access to manuscripts may, when necessary, be suspended during an assessment; this measure does not, in itself, establish misconduct. The decision and transfer of duties are documented, and access to the editorial system is updated promptly.

Membership is not terminated as punishment for a good-faith scholarly decision, well-founded criticism or reporting possible misconduct. An objection to a decision is considered independently of the persons whose actions are challenged, in accordance with the journal’s ethics policy.

15. Openness and transparency

The following details of each Editorial Board member are published on the journal’s official website:

• full name;
• editorial role;
• academic degree and academic title;
• primary institution;
• city and country;
• ORCID, where available;
• a link to an institutional page, Scopus Author ID or Web of Science Researcher Profile, where available.

The Editorial Board list is kept up to date. Members notify the editorial office of changes to their institution, position or other professional details. The journal does not list people who are not actual Editorial Board members and promptly removes former members from the current list. Historical lists, if retained, are clearly marked as archived. Profile links are verified as belonging to the named person; a member’s Scopus Author ID or Web of Science Researcher Profile does not indicate that the journal is indexed. Personal contact details are published only to the extent necessary and with the individual’s consent.

16. Distinction between Editorial Board members and reviewers

Editorial Board membership entails an ongoing editorial or advisory role for the journal. Reviewers are independent experts who assess individual manuscripts on the basis of their subject expertise. The journal does not present a reviewer list as an Editorial Board list and maintains a clear distinction between the two roles. A Board member may provide an expert assessment within their competence, but it does not count as one of the two independent external reviews required by the current Peer Review Policy. Recognition of an external reviewer’s contribution does not constitute appointment to the Board.

17. External standards

In organising its work, the journal considers the following international references and its own policies:

• COPE Core Practices, including journal management, conflicts of interest and the handling of misconduct;
• Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing;
• DOAJ Guide to Applying;
• Scopus Content Policy and Selection;
• Web of Science Journal Evaluation Process and Selection Criteria;
• the journal’s Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement;
• the journal’s Peer Review Policy;
• applicable legal requirements and recognised standards of research integrity.

References to external organisations identify the sources of guidance used and do not constitute a claim of COPE membership, inclusion of the journal in DOAJ, Scopus or Web of Science, or endorsement of this policy by those organisations.

18. Policy administration

This policy applies after approval through the established procedure and publication on the official website. The approval, effective and last amendment dates are stated when it is posted. The policy is reviewed periodically, and substantial changes are communicated to editors and Editorial Board members. The Russian, Uzbek and English versions must convey the same requirements.

This policy applies together with the publication ethics and peer review policies. Identified inconsistencies are resolved with a documented explanation of the applicable procedure; a change in wording is not evidence that the corresponding procedure existed in the past.

Questions about membership, authority, conflicts of interest and editorial independence may be forwarded to the editorial office through the general contact of the founder and publisher — info@uzkti.uz. The subject line should read: “Criminological Activity: Editorial Board”. The Institute’s current contact details are available on its official page. The initial message should not include criminal case materials or participants’ personal data; a secure transfer method is agreed separately.

A complaint about an editor or a publisher’s representative is referred to a person without a conflict of interest; the person whose actions are challenged does not make the final decision on the complaint. An independent external expert is appointed when necessary.

In accordance with the ethics policy, the editorial office aims to acknowledge receipt within 15 working days. Following initial assessment, the subsequent procedure and an indicative response timeframe are communicated; during prolonged consideration, progress updates are normally provided at least once every 30 calendar days. The final response includes a reasoned decision.