Ethics and malpractice statement

We are strongly committed to promote the highest ethical publication practices and expects all submitting authors to uphold the high standards of publication ethics as set out by the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Panteion University Code of Ethics and Malpractice.

Editorial policy

Urban Crime is an Open Access journal, first published in 2020.

Urban Crime is published two to three times a year. The issues contents include: “Editorial”, “Scientific Articles”, “Projects & Publications Monitor”, “Conference reviews”, and “Book Reviews”.

Urban Crime publishes articles in English, French and Greek, including summaries.

Urban Crime is a peer-reviewed journal, which uses  a double-blind review.

Urban Crime is published by the Laboratory of Urban Criminology of Panteion University of Athens.

Urban Crime is hosted at https://ojs.panteion.gr/ administered by the Library of Panteion University of Athens.

Editorial responsibilities

Articles for publishing are submitted in urbancrimejournal@gmail.com. Articles are forwarded to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal who is responsible for selecting manuscripts for publishing, giving and obtaining professional opinion, and is responsible for published publication.

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for sending the articles to two Reviewers, that are members of the Editorial Board of Urban Crime and/or Experts in the field. The  acceptance process is guided by the Editorial Policy and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

In case one or more members of the Editorial Board hold a conflict of interest regarding a submitted manuscript, these members shall withdraw from the selection of reviewers and all decisions related to the manuscript. Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board members are to report the existence  of a conflict of interest promptly.

Editors and members of the Editorial Board shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process, and the authors remain anonymous to reviewers until the end of the review procedure. 

Author's responsibilities

Authors submit manuscripts that are original, written by the stated authors and have not been published elsewhere. Submitted manuscripts are not  considered for publishing in another journal, nor are submitted for review to another journal while under review by Urban Crime.

The articles do not contain libelous or other unlawful statements and do not contain any materials that violate any other person or entity’s personal or proprietary rights.

Authors hold no conflict of interest that may affect the article’s integrity and the validity of the findings presented in it.

Authors obtain written permission from copyright owners for any excerpts from copyrighted work and other copyrighted materials included in the manuscript and have credited the sources in the manuscript.
If any personal details or images of patients, research subjects, or other individuals have been used in the article, all consents required by applicable law and complied with the Editorial Policy need to be provided.

All of the above is included in the Authors' Statement that the authors should submit before the publication.

 

Authorship

Authors must make sure that only contributors who have significantly contributed to the manuscript are listed as authors and, conversely, that all contributors who have significantly contributed to the manuscript’s content are listed as authors. If persons other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the manuscript’s preparation, their contribution should be acknowledged in a footnote or the Acknowledgments section.

Acknowledgment of Sources

Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced their research and their manuscript.

Plagiarism

All submissions are thoroughly checked for plagiarism.

Any manuscript that shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected, and authors will be permanently or temporary forbidden to publish in Urban Crime.

Conflict of interest

Authors should disclose  any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest in their manuscript that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.

Fundamental errors in published articles

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published article, it is the author must promptly notify Editor-in-Chief or publisher of the journal and cooperate with them to retract or correct the paper.

By submitting a manuscript to the Editorial Board, the authors agree to abide by the journal’s Editorial Policies.

Peer review

The submitted manuscripts are subject to a peer review process. The  peer review aims to assist the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions about whether to accept or refuse the manuscript. Throughout the editorial communications with the authors it may also assist the author in improving the manuscript.

Urban Crime uses double-blind review. Reviewers have approximately a month to review the manuscript. Only on special occasions will the time framework be extended, and the author of the manuscript shall be informed. Reviewers are not paid for the review process.

The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the manuscript’s subject area; they must not be from the authors’ institution and they should not have recent joint publications with any of the authors (as co-authors).

All the reviewers of a manuscript remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process. Authors are suggested that, during the process of manuscript writing, avoid any formulations that may uncover their identity. Editor-in-Chief guaranties that all authors’ personal information (name and affiliation) will be removed from the manuscript before sending to the reviewers, and that he/she will perform all reasonable measures that the identity of the author remains unknown to reviewers until the review process has been completed.

All of the reviewers of a paper act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor-in-Chief asks for the opinion of the third reviewer.

During the review process, Editor-in-Chief may require authors to provide additional information (if they are necessary for evaluating the scholarly merit of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

The Editorial Board shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. For reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standards. When there is any doubt concerning the objectivity of the reviews or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.

Reviewers' responsibilities

Reviewers must provide written, competent and unbiased feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the manuscript.

The reviewers assess manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the originality and scientific relevance of information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus.

The reviewer should alert the Editor-in-Chief to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. The reviewer should recognize relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors. He/she should alert the Editor-in-Chief to substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, in the event they are aware of such. Reviewers should also alert the Editor-in-Chief to a parallel submission of the same paper to another journal, in the event they are aware of such.

The reviewer must not have a conflict of interest concerning the research, the authors and/or the research funding sources. If such conflicts exist, the reviewer must report them to the Editor-in-Chief without delay.

A reviewer who feels unqualified for the topic or scientific field of the manuscript should notify the Editor-in-Chief without delay.

Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

Open access policy

Urban Crime is an Open Access Journal. All articles can be downloaded free of charge from the website hosted by the Library of Panteion University https://ojs.panteion.gr/.

There are no charges for submissions, reviewing, and publication of articles.

Copyright

The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.

The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form (partially or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in the published manuscripts do not express the views of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board of Urban Crime.