Open Access to Criminal Justice Scholarship: A Matter of Social Justice

Abstract

The paper argues that criminal justice scholarship disseminated through the traditional journal subscription model is not consistent with social justice. Adoption of "open access" principles in publishing benefits both authors and readers through broader and more egalitarian dissemination of criminal justice literature. Moreover, when viewed in light of social justice theory, open access is a more just method of scholarly communication. After providing a brief outline of the history and basic aspects of open access, the paper uses the framework of the social justice theories of John Rawls and David Miller to argue why open access is more just than traditional subscription models of publishing and why criminal justice scholars and their associations must consider the importance of supporting open access initiatives and promoting the dissemination of scholarship as widely as possible if they are concerned about attaining justice for criminal justice scholarly literature.

Business as Usual with Article Processing Charges in the Transition towards OA Publishing: A Case Study Based on Elsevier

“…OA is not only a matter of social justice [63,64] but also tends to maximize social welfare [65,66], in accordance with the view that scientific information is an economic public good [67] and brings about positive externalities [68]. Nonetheless, the literature has already expressed the concern that moving from the reader-pays model to a landscape where authors (or sponsors) bear the costs could impair the quality level of journals, while subscription fees act as an incentive to preserve a high level of content quality.…”

The open-access availability of criminological research to practitioners and policy makers

“…From this perspective, ensuring wider access to research findings is an issue of social justice (Scherlen & Robinson, 2008). Bohannon (2016 p 509) gives the example of a student in a middle-income country writing a PhD project proposal:…”

The Evidence Base: Where is it?

“…In terms of developing useful evidence, everything from the simple suggested grey literature standard to frameworks for evaluation and reporting, such as Ekblom's 5Is (Ekblom 2003 As Scherlen and Robinson (2008) advocate, given the problems of publishing in the key journals, open access is a more 'just' way to promote dissemination of scholarship more widely. They see the subscription model as a thing of the past.…”