Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

This statement is based on guidelines and standards set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

The Latin-American Journal of Criminology (Revista Latino-Americana de Criminologia - RELAC) aims at ensuring an ethical behavorial standards by all of the parties involved in the publishing: author(s), editor(s) and reviewers. This statement is based on the "Best Practices Guidelines for Journal Editors” by COPE, which describes such standards for the purpose of publishing with our journal

Duties of editors

Decision to publish

The chief editors of RELAC are responsible for deciding which manuscripts submitted to the journal should be published. The editors may follow the policies from the editorial council of the journal and will take into account the legal requirements concerning issues as defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Confidentiality

The editorial team of RELAC must not release information about any manuscript submitted to any person other than the author, reviewer, potential reviewer or member of the editorial council, as the case may be.

Release and conflict of interest

Material never published before that is released in a manuscript submitted should not be used in any of the editors’ own researches without the express written consent from its authors.

Duties of reviewers or evaluators

Contribution to editorial decisions

Reviewers assist in the best (sic) of the manuscripts submitted and in the best editorial decision-making through reviews and communication between editors and corresponding authors.

Evaluation

Any invited evaluator who believes to be unqualified to review the research submitted in a manuscript or who, for any reason, believes is not possible to deliver his/her review should give notice to the editor(s) and remove him/herself from the review process.

Objectivity

The evaluations and reviews should have grounds and be prepared in an objective way. Personal criticism of the authors is inadequate.

Crediting sources

Evaluators and reviewers should identify relevant published papers not mentioned in the manuscript submitted. Any statement that a note, derivation or argument has been published before should indicate its respective source. The reviewer should also bring the editor(s) attention to any substantial similarity or overlapping between the manuscript in question and any other manuscript published that is personally known.

Release and conflict of interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained in reading the manuscript submitted should be kept in confidentiality and must not be used for personal advantage. Reviewers and evaluators should not consider manuscripts involving conflict of interest resulting from competition, cooperation, or other relations or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to work.

Duties of authors

Work report

The authors should submit an accurate report on the research work performed and an objective analysis of its meaning.

Accessing and retaining data

Authors may be asked to provide raw data concerning the manuscript submitted for editorial revision purposes. They should be prepared to give public access to such data (pursuant to the joint statement about data and database Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers and The International Association of Sci-entific, Technical, & Medical Publishers), if possible, and in any event should be prepared to keep such data for a reasonable period of time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism

The authors should ensure to have written original manuscripts; when resorting to papers and/or concepts and ideas of other people, the authors should ensure to duly mention and make reference to them.

Multiple or competing publication

Papers that essentially describe the same research in more than one journal or primary publication should not be submitted. In addition, submitting one same manuscript to more than one periodical simultaneously constitutes an unethical and unacceptable behavior.

Crediting sources

Adequate crediting of the work of other researcher(s) should always be observed. All publications that have influenced the determination of the results of the paper should be reported.

Authorship of the article

Authorship must be limited to whoever made a significant contribution to the conception, outline, execution or interpretation of the related study. All of those who made significant contributions should be listed as co-author(s). If there are any other persons who participated in a certain substantial aspects of the research, they should be credited or listed only as contributors. The authors should ensure that the co-authors approve the final version of the article and agree to submitting it to publication.

Upon submission, provide the e-mails of the co-authors. Once the article is accepted by the Editorial Council, RELAC will send a copy of this statement to all of the co-authors, from whom individual statements of agreement will be expected as requirement to begin the evaluation process. After this stage, all communication will be made through the author.

Release and conflict of interest

The authors should reveal in the manuscript any conflict of interest that may be interpreted as a factor influencing the results of the research or in the interpretation of such results. Furthermore, all sources of financial support to make the research should be informed.

Fundamental errors in published articles

Whenever an author finds an error or significant inaccuracy in his/her own published article, it is incumbent on the author to notify the Editorial Team of RELAC and cooperate to correct or retract the article.