The board of the American Society of Criminology decided "a change of leadership was required due to some ongoing operational issues with the Criminology journal", according to an announcement on the society’s website.

The society’s leadership has recently acknowledged concerns about review times at the journal. The average review time was not available for 2023. Instead, the authors reported median review times, which increased from 45 to 83 days from 2022 to 2023 for all articles, including desk rejections. For only articles sent for review, the authors found the median review time increased from 54 to 99 days in those years. The longest review time in 2023 was 388 days, for an article that received a desk rejection, they wrote.

In a response article, Topalli and Loughran (previous editors of the journal who have resigned) described the journal’s editorial process in detail and acknowledged "longer than desirable wait times" in 2023, their first year editing the journal. They attributed the issue to implementing new processes, a larger-than-ever number of submissions, the difficulty of finding reviewers, and the need to conduct two "time-consuming" investigations of articles. In the first three months of 2025, the mean number of days for a decision was 40.8, and desk rejections took 5.9 days, on average, Topalli and Loughran wrote. 

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2025/10/07/editors-of-criminology-journal-resign-amid-concern-about-review-times/

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