Submission opens on ScholarOne: 11th March 2021

Submission window closes: 30th June 2021

Guest editors

Matt Ford, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies

Email: [email protected]

Overview of special issue

The extraordinary impacts of COVID-19 on society mean it has risen to dominate every aspect of the policy agenda and will do for many years to come. In the short- to medium-term all other salient issues in the criminal justice system will be inflected through the prism of the impacts of COVID-19. Notable impacts on the criminal justice system so far include: a significant drop in recorded crime overall during the lockdown period, with some offence groups markedly up in the period; serious disruption to court activity, particularly jury trials, accelerating the move to digitisation of court procedures and a major backlog in cases; significant falls in the prison population; and the imposition of highly restrictive regimes in prison, the effects of which are as yet unclear.

Due to the unprecedented nature of the pandemic there is limited research in this area. This edition will bring together what has been learned over the first year.

The initial emergency phase of the pandemic has already stimulated campaigning, advocacy, commentary and some research from the criminal justice reform sector and academics.

Due to the unprecedented nature of the pandemic there is limited research in the area. Contributions in this edition will take a retrospective look at what happened in the main phases of the pandemic with the benefit of hindsight and some more extensive data, allowing authors to develop a more considered assessment of the likely long-term ongoing consequences.

Indicative list of anticipated themes

We foresee articles covering the impacts of the pandemic on any aspect of the major areas of criminal justice, i.e. crime and policing, courts, prisons, and probation.

Submission details

All submissions must be made via ScholarOne.

For more information, please see the author guidelines.