Asian Journal of Criminal Justice and Forensic Studies

Research ethics

Research involving human participants, human data or human biological material must be conducted in accordance with applicable national legislation, institutional requirements and relevant internationally recognised ethical standards.

Where required, approval must be obtained from an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or other appropriate ethics committee before the research begins. The manuscript must identify the approving body and, where applicable, provide the approval number and date.

Participants must receive sufficient information about the purpose of the research, the intended use of their data, confidentiality or anonymity arrangements, and any reasonably foreseeable risks associated with participation. Informed consent must be obtained where required.

If formal ethical approval was not required for a particular study, the authors must provide an appropriate explanation in the manuscript. Where applicable, they should refer to an exemption issued by an ethics committee or to the relevant institutional, local or national regulations under which ethical approval was not required.

The Editorial Board may request supporting documentation relating to ethical approval, exemption or informed consent where necessary.

Duties of the Editorial Board

The Editorial Board is responsible for maintaining the scientific quality, integrity and ethical standards of the journal. Editors must:

• treat authors fairly, respectfully and impartially;
• maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and editorial correspondence;
• assess manuscripts on their academic merit, relevance to the journal and compliance with editorial and ethical requirements;
• ensure that editorial decisions are not influenced by personal, commercial or other inappropriate interests;
• arrange independent and competent peer review in accordance with the journal's double-anonymised peer review policy;
• disclose and appropriately manage any conflicts of interest;
• not substantially alter the scientific content, findings or conclusions of a manuscript without the authors' agreement;
• reject or investigate manuscripts where there is evidence of plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, falsification or other serious breaches of publication ethics;
• take appropriate action where credible concerns arise before or after publication.

Editorial decisions are based on the scholarly quality, originality, methodological soundness, relevance and integrity of the submitted work.

Responsibilities of reviewers

Reviewers must provide independent, objective, constructive and reasoned assessments of manuscripts submitted to them.

Reviewers are expected to:

• evaluate manuscripts without discrimination or inappropriate bias;
• accept assignments only where they have sufficient expertise to assess the manuscript;
• complete reviews within the agreed timeframe or promptly inform the Editorial Office if this is not possible;
• treat manuscripts and all information obtained through peer review as confidential;
• not share manuscripts with third parties without prior permission from the Editorial Office;
• not use unpublished information, data or ideas obtained through peer review for personal or professional advantage;
• disclose any actual, potential or perceived conflict of interest and decline the review where impartial assessment may be compromised;
• identify relevant published work that has not been appropriately acknowledged where reasonably possible;
• inform the Editorial Office of suspected plagiarism, data fabrication, duplicate publication or other potential breaches of research or publication ethics.

Reviewers' comments must relate to the scholarly content of the manuscript and must be expressed professionally and respectfully.

Obligations of authors

Authors are responsible for the accuracy, originality and integrity of their submitted work.

Authors must:

• present research findings accurately and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate manipulation;
• acknowledge all sources appropriately and provide accurate citations and references;
• avoid plagiarism, inappropriate text recycling and redundant publication;
• ensure that the manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal;
• disclose relevant funding sources and conflicts of interest;
• comply with applicable research ethics requirements;
• retain underlying research records and supporting documentation where appropriate;
• cooperate with the Editorial Office where questions concerning the integrity or accuracy of the work arise.

If authors identify a significant error or inaccuracy in a submitted or published article, they must promptly inform the Editorial Office and cooperate in issuing an appropriate correction or other post-publication notice.

Where credible concerns are raised by a third party, the journal will investigate them in accordance with its publication ethics policies. Depending on the findings, appropriate action may include a correction, expression of concern or retraction.

Authorship statement

“Asian Journal of Criminal Justice and Forensic Studies” requires all listed authors to have made a substantial scholarly contribution to the work and to accept responsibility for their contribution.

All authors must:

• have made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data;
• have participated in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
• approve the final version to be published;
• agree to be accountable for the integrity and accuracy of the work.

All listed authors must approve the submission of the manuscript and its publication if accepted.

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section with their permission.

The journal encourages appropriate collaboration with researchers and other contributors at the locations where the research was conducted. Contributors who meet the journal's authorship criteria should not be excluded from authorship.

Submission declaration

Submission of a manuscript confirms that the work has not previously been published in substantially the same form and is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal.

The corresponding author confirms that all authors have approved the submitted version and have agreed to its submission to the “Asian Journal of Criminal Justice and Forensic Studies”.

If the manuscript is accepted, it must not subsequently be published elsewhere in substantially the same form without appropriate acknowledgement of the original publication and in accordance with the licence applicable to the published article.

Data sharing policy

“Asian Journal of Criminal Justice and Forensic Studies” supports transparency, reproducibility and responsible research data management while recognising legitimate ethical, legal and confidentiality restrictions.

Authors should include a Data Availability Statement indicating whether and under what conditions the data supporting the findings of the study are available.

Where appropriate and legally and ethically permissible, authors are encouraged to deposit research data in a recognised institutional, disciplinary or general-purpose repository and provide a persistent identifier or link to the dataset.

Where data cannot be made publicly available because of participant confidentiality, privacy requirements, legal restrictions, intellectual property rights, security considerations or other legitimate reasons, these restrictions should be stated clearly in the Data Availability Statement.

Where appropriate, restricted data may be made available upon reasonable request and subject to applicable ethical, legal, confidentiality or data-use requirements.

The Editorial Office may request access to supporting data or documentation where this is necessary to assess the integrity of a submitted or published work. Failure to provide requested supporting information without a reasonable justification may result in further editorial action.

Policy on post-publication discussions

The journal supports responsible and constructive discussion of published research.

Readers, authors and other researchers may raise comments or concerns regarding published articles directly with the Editorial Office or through recognised post-publication discussion platforms such as PubPeer.

Comments and concerns should focus on the scholarly content, methodology, data, interpretation or integrity of the published work and should be expressed professionally.

Credible concerns relating to a published article will be assessed by the Editorial Board and, where appropriate, investigated in accordance with the journal's publication ethics policies.

Where an investigation identifies an error or issue affecting the scholarly record, the journal may publish a correction, expression of concern, retraction or other appropriate notice.

The journal will not disregard substantive concerns solely because they were raised anonymously or through a third-party post-publication platform.

Advertising policy

“Asian Journal of Criminal Justice and Forensic Studies” does not accept commercial advertising.

Editorial decisions, peer review and publication decisions are independent of the journal's sources of financial or institutional support.

Research funding policy

Authors must disclose all sources of financial support relevant to the research reported in the manuscript.

Funding declarations should identify, where applicable:

• research grants and funding from scientific institutions or foundations;
• governmental or non-governmental funding;
• commercial or private financial support;
• institutional or internal research funding.

Where relevant, authors should provide the name of the funding organisation and the grant or project number.

If the research received no specific financial support, the following statement should be included:

“This research received no specific funding.”

Funding information must be disclosed transparently and must not affect editorial assessment, peer review or publication decisions.