First-rate Research: UC's Criminal Justice Division Leads National Productivity Study

For a streak that now spans over the last 10 years consecutively, UC's Division of Criminal Justice has ranked as the No. 1 department of its kind in the country in terms of research productivity.

Date: 12/14/2007 12:00:00 AM
By: Carey Hoffman
Phone: (513) 556-1825

Along with a string of recognition and honors that establish the Criminal Justice Division at the University of Cincinnati as one of the nation’s foremost programs of its kind, add one more – the leading criminal justice department in the nation in research productivity.

That was the outcome documented in the most recent edition of the "Journal of Criminal Justice Education," which included an article by researchers from Florida State University analyzing faculty productivity in the field.

Their conclusion: Criminal justice faculty from UC were the most published researchers in the field in the span covering 2000-2005.

"This is the second study in the past few years that gives us this distinction," says Ed Latessa, head of UC’s Division of Criminal Justice. "It reflects the support the university has had for the program, and it also shows the hard work and dedication of the faculty."

This most recent finding follows on the heels of other indicators which show UC Criminal Justice at the top of its field:

The division placed sixth nationally earlier this year in a measure of scholarly activity among criminology and justice studies programs detailed in Academic Analytics Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index.
In 2006, the PhD program was ranked No. 3 in the country on U.S. News and World Report’s survey of best graduate schools
The predecessor study to this most recent one, which also was published by the "Journal of Criminal Justice Education" and appeared in 2001, showed UC ranking No. 1 in faculty productivity over the previous five years.

The division currently has 18 graduate-level faculty members, along with four faculty who concentrate on the undergraduate curriculum. There are areas of concentrated specialty within the division in the areas of corrections and policing, with research efforts being coordinated through the division’s Center for Criminal Justice Research.

The new study ranked UC Criminal Justice No. 1 in the number of published articles weighted by the quality of the journal. UC was followed closely by the University of Florida, with the University of Maryland in the No. 3 spot.

The study also cited UC as No. 1 when productivity was measured by a pair of other standards that had variables in the types of journals looked at.

"This latest study again shows that some of the most outstanding researchers in the nation in the field of criminal justice are here at the University of Cincinnati," says John Wright, UC associate professor of criminal justice and the division’s graduate director. "We know the quality of people we have working on important issues in our division, and it’s nice to see them get outside recognition on a national scale, as well."