Procedure for presenting and reviewing articles

To ensure the quality of articles published in the Journal of the National Institute of Justice, they must be submitted to the editorial office at least two months before the publication of the next issue. After submission to the editorial office, the article will undergo a multi-stage review process.

Initially, the article is evaluated by the scientific editor in collaboration with the editor-in-chief or the deputy editor-in-chief.

Attention is paid to the structure and the main components a scientific article must contain: whether the title is reflected in the article's content, whether the abstract reflects the content and the keywords correspond to the content, whether the literature review is present, the description of own research including correct reporting of the experiment performed, with the presentation of the relevant conclusions, and the bibliography is presented and written according to the requirements of ANACEC and of the journal. Attention is given to originality, the timeliness of the results and conclusions presented, whether they are new with possibilities of practical application, and whether the research is of interest to scholars and practitioners.

If the article is of interest but contains some deficiencies, it is returned to the author with instructions for the necessary edits and additions; and if the work does not meet the general requirements for scientific articles, the author is notified by the editorial manager or the editor-in-chief or the deputy editor-in-chief that their scientific work cannot be published.

When the article is found to meet the scientific requirements, the editorial manager or the editor-in-chief or the deputy editor-in-chief proposes the article for blind peer-review by two persons holding a scientific title and competent in the respective field, selected by the Editorial Board and the Scientific Council. In analysing the article's content, the reviewer takes into account each element: whether the title fully reflects the article's content; whether the abstract clearly reflects the article's content; the keywords express content reference points; the introduction is concise and describes the state of affairs, the importance of the study; how well the addressed problem is known in the specialised literature, what new data the research adds; the actual content of the work supports arguments, the necessity of the research starting from the literature analysis, the correctness of tables; the results of the research are explained and presented clearly and in a logical sequence.

After peer-review by two independent experts in the field, the scientific article together with the reviewers' reports are presented to the editorial office and editorial board, which make recommendations for the final decision. If both reviews are negative, the article is rejected and the author is notified of the decision.

The article will not be returned to the author.