01Responsibilities of the publisher

The journal's founder and publisher is the Criminological Research Institute of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The Institute's Editorial and Publishing Centre prepares and produces the journal.

The publisher must:

• provide the organisational, financial and technical conditions needed to carry out editorial procedures;
• protect the independence of the scholarly assessment of manuscripts and editorial decisions;
• support the handling of ethics concerns and the publication of corrections, retractions and other necessary notices;
• ensure the accuracy of information about the founder, publisher, editorial team, fees, licensing and manuscript assessment procedures;
• arrange the protection of editorial data, backups and the preservation of published material in accordance with the stated archiving arrangements;
• ensure that current policies and information about changes to them are accessible.

Institute funding, payment for publication services, fee waivers, sponsorship and the organisation's reputational interests must not constitute grounds for accepting or rejecting scholarly work.

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02Responsibilities of editors

The Editor-in-Chief and the editorial team are responsible for the scholarly rigour and transparency of the editorial process. They must:

• assess the originality, methodological quality, reliability, clarity and significance of the work, as well as its relevance to the journal's scope;
• prevent discrimination on the grounds of citizenship, ethnicity, gender, religion, political views, disability, professional position or other personal characteristics;
• arrange confidential and objective peer review by appropriately qualified specialists;
• disclose conflicts of interest and transfer the handling of a manuscript to an independent editor when circumstances prevent an impartial assessment;
• protect information about authors and reviewers, manuscript content, correspondence and unpublished data;
• document significant decisions and actions taken in addressing ethical matters;
• take appropriate action when errors or violations are identified in published material.

Editors must not use unpublished information in their own research or for other purposes without permission from the rights holders and compliance with the conditions governing access to the data. Critical findings about institutions, government policy or law enforcement activities are assessed on scholarly grounds; such findings do not, in themselves, constitute a reason for rejecting publication.

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03Independent handling of work by Institute staff and editorial members

Manuscripts submitted by Institute staff, members of the Editorial Board, the Editor-in-Chief and guest editors are subject to the same scholarly and ethical requirements as other submissions.

An author who holds an editorial role must not participate in appointing reviewers, discussing or deciding on their own work, and must not have access to confidential editorial information beyond the access available to an ordinary author.

The manuscript is assigned to an editor who has no conflict of interest, is not professionally subordinate to the author and has not participated in the research. If such independence cannot be secured within the editorial team, an appropriately qualified external editor is appointed. Reviewers must also be independent of the authors and the work under consideration.

The same quality and ethics requirements apply to special issues. A guest editor must not decide on their own article. Significant details of the arrangements for independent handling are disclosed in the published work.

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04Responsibilities of reviewers

Reviewers must:

• accept assignments only within their area of scholarly competence;
• provide reasoned, constructive and impartial reports;
• meet agreed deadlines or promptly inform the editorial office if they cannot do so;
• maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts, data and editorial correspondence;
• disclose financial, professional, institutional and personal conflicts of interest;
• notify the editorial office of indications of plagiarism, unreliable data, authorship violations or other ethical concerns;
• refrain from insults, personal judgements and unsubstantiated allegations;
• communicate with authors about peer review through the editorial office.

Passing a manuscript or a review assignment to another person, including a colleague or student, is permitted only with prior editorial approval and subject to confidentiality. Citation recommendations must have a scholarly justification; increasing the reviewer's own citation count must not be their purpose.

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05Responsibilities of authors

Authors must:

• submit original work and disclose its relationship to previously disseminated or published material;
• refrain from submitting the same manuscript to several journals simultaneously;
• accurately describe the research question, sources, sample, methods, analysis, findings and limitations;
• ensure that scholarly claims can be verified within the permitted conditions of access to research material;
• correctly cite the works, legislation, judicial decisions, statistical sources and other sources used;
• avoid fabrication, falsification, concealment of significant findings and misleading interpretation;
• disclose funding, the role of the commissioning body and conflicts of interest;
• obtain the necessary ethics approvals, permissions and consent;
• agree on authorship, contributions and the final text;
• respect copyright and the conditions governing the use of third-party material;
• retain and protect primary research material in accordance with the conditions of the study and applicable requirements.

Criminological research should distinguish between recorded offences, estimates of unreported crime, participants' self-reports and other indicators. Changes in statistical definitions, recording practices, sample composition or data availability must be disclosed where they affect the conclusions. Correlational findings must not be presented as evidence of a causal effect without appropriate research justification.

An author who discovers a significant error must promptly notify the editorial office and cooperate in its assessment and correction.

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06Authorship and contributorship

An author is a person who has made a substantial scholarly contribution to the research, participated in drafting the text or substantively revising its scholarly content, approved the final version and accepted responsibility for their contribution and the integrity of the work.

Managerial oversight, funding, providing access to an institution or data, technical assistance or professional rank do not, on their own, justify authorship. Buying or selling authorship, the coerced inclusion of a supervisor, the exclusion of an actual author and naming a person without their consent are prohibited.

Contributions are described in the manuscript; the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy is used to structure them where its roles are applicable. CRediT describes contributions and does not replace authorship criteria. People who do not meet these criteria may be named in the Acknowledgements with their consent.

Changes to the author list or author order after submission require a justification and the written agreement of all affected individuals. Changes after publication are documented in a transparent notice. Where a dispute remains unresolved, manuscript assessment may be suspended; establishing the actual contributions may, where necessary, be referred to a competent organisation.

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07Conflicts of interest and funding

Authors, editors and reviewers disclose relationships and circumstances that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research or editorial assessment. These include financial support, employment and consultancy relationships, personal ties, recent co-authorship, hierarchical reporting relationships, professional competition and other significant interests.

In studies of particular institutions, prevention programmes or government measures, authors disclose their involvement in developing, implementing, funding or evaluating them. The body commissioning the research and its role in the choice of methods, access to data, analysis and the decision to publish must be identified.

Every article must contain funding and conflict of interest statements, including statements of their absence where applicable. A disclosed conflict does not result in automatic rejection: the editorial team determines the measures needed to manage it.

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08Research involving human participants

Research using interviews, surveys, observation, experiments, personal records or other data about people must take account of participants' rights, dignity, welfare and safety.

Approval from a competent committee or another authorised body must be obtained before procedures requiring ethical assessment begin. The manuscript must state the body's name and the date and reference number of the decision, where a number is assigned. If approval is not required or an exemption has been granted, authors must explain the basis. Permission from an institution's management to access participants or documents does not, in itself, replace ethical assessment.

Participants are given clear information about the study's purpose, the nature of their participation, the use of data, possible risks and the limits of confidentiality. Participation must be voluntary. The conditions for declining individual questions, ending participation and withdrawing data are explained in advance, including limitations following irreversible anonymisation or publication.

People in custody, convicted persons and people under supervision. Authors must describe safeguards against pressure and coercion by those in authority. Consent to participate in research must not be linked to promises of a reduced sentence, improved conditions of detention or procedural advantages. Refusal to participate must not lead to adverse consequences. Compensation, if offered, must be justified and must not constitute an undue inducement.

Minors, victims and other vulnerable participants. For minors, requirements for consent from a legal representative and for the child's own assent are taken into account, according to the child's age and ability to understand the research. Work with survivors of violence, human trafficking and other vulnerable groups must include safeguards against retraumatisation and disclosure of their whereabouts or status.

Departures from the usual consent procedure, including covert observation or the secondary use of personal data without renewed consent, require an ethical and legal basis established in advance; convenience for the researcher is not such a basis.

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09Judicial, investigative and other sensitive information

Access to criminal case files, court records, institutional databases and information about criminal convictions, victimisation and places of detention must have a proper basis. The ability to consult a document does not automatically confer a right to disclose its entire content in a scholarly publication.

Authors minimise the amount of personal data used. Information that could identify a person directly or indirectly must be removed from text, tables, images, appendices and metadata, including combinations of age, location, dates, unusual circumstances of a case, professional position and other characteristics. Replacing a name with a pseudonym may not, on its own, be sufficient.

Consent to participate in research and consent to publish identifiable information are treated separately. Publishing identifiable material about a participant requires separate informed consent and a permissible legal basis. Analysis of public judicial decisions and other publicly available documents must include an assessment of the necessity of personal details and the risk of harm.

The manuscript must distinguish between suspicion, charges and facts established by a court. Findings about crime in particular areas or groups must not go beyond the data, be replaced by stigmatising generalisations or create unsubstantiated accusations against specific individuals.

Authors must not disclose legally protected secrets, information about protected witnesses, non-public operational information or other material whose dissemination is prohibited. If the necessary scholarly verification is impossible without violating rights or access restrictions, the editorial team may require a revision that safeguards the information or decline publication.

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10Data availability and verifiability of results

The manuscript must contain a data availability statement specifying where the data are held, the conditions under which they can be provided or the reasons why access is restricted. Links to repositories and persistent identifiers are used where available.

Open publication of primary interviews, personal records or restricted institutional data is not required if it would violate the conditions of consent, participants' rights, safety requirements or lawful restrictions. Instead, where possible, authors provide anonymised aggregate data, analysis code, variable descriptions, research instruments or another adequate means of verification.

The editorial team may request supporting material through an agreed secure channel. The extent of access must be proportionate to the purpose of verification. Authors disclose in advance any inability to provide particular information and propose a permissible alternative. Artificially created teaching examples and synthetic data must be clearly labelled and must not be presented as actual observations.

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11Breaches of research and publication ethics

Prohibited practices include, in particular:

• plagiarism, appropriation of ideas and inappropriate text reuse;
• fabrication of interviews, questionnaires, observations, statistics, documents or findings;
• falsification of data, unjustified exclusion of observations and concealment of findings that alter the conclusions;
• manipulation of images, tables, maps, quotations or analytical procedures;
• duplicate publication and artificial fragmentation of findings to present the same scholarly contribution repeatedly;
• simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to several journals;
• fabricated references, coercive citation and other forms of citation manipulation;
• buying, selling or misrepresenting authorship;
• fabricated reviews, fictitious expert profiles and interference with the independence of peer review;
• concealment of a significant conflict of interest;
• failure to obtain necessary permissions, ethics approval or consent;
• unauthorised disclosure of confidential information.

When assessing textual overlap, the editorial team considers the context, citation practices, the nature of the sources and the legitimacy of reuse. A similarity percentage alone does not establish plagiarism and does not replace substantive assessment. Likewise, an automated AI detector's output is not, on its own, evidence of a violation.

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12Handling reports of possible violations

Reports may be submitted by authors, reviewers, readers and other individuals. Anonymous reports are also considered if they contain specific, verifiable information. The editorial team does not make public findings of culpability before the circumstances have been established.

The procedure includes:

1. Registering the report, identifying the affected work and making a preliminary assessment of the facts presented.
2. Checking for conflicts of interest among those assigned to consider the matter and, where necessary, involving an independent specialist.
3. Requesting explanations from authors and other affected participants and allowing a reasonable time for a response.
4. Examining available primary material, editorial records and documentation relating to authorship, consent and ethics approval.
5. Where necessary, contacting the author's organisation, an ethics committee, a funding organisation or another competent body.
6. Reaching a documented decision and notifying the relevant parties within permissible limits of disclosure.

Manuscript assessment or preparation for publication may be suspended while the matter is examined. Possible outcomes include continuing assessment, requesting revisions, rejecting the manuscript, issuing a correction or expression of concern, or retracting the article. The response must be proportionate to the nature and consequences of the established problem; an honest error is considered separately from deliberate misconduct.

The reporting person's information is protected within applicable requirements and the needs of a fair examination. Absolute confidentiality is not promised where disclosure is required by a competent authority or necessary to examine the matter. An author's failure to respond does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing; a decision may be reached on the basis of sufficient available evidence.

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13Complaints, appeals and scholarly discussion

A complaint may concern an editorial procedure, the conduct of participants, compliance with ethical requirements or published material. An appeal against a decision must identify a specific factual, procedural or ethical error and provide a justification.

An appeal is considered by a person who was not involved in the disputed decision and has no conflict of interest. A complaint about the Editor-in-Chief, an editorial member or a representative of the publisher cannot be finally resolved by the person whose conduct is being challenged. An independent external expert is involved where necessary.

The editorial office aims to acknowledge receipt of a communication within 15 working days. Following the initial assessment, the person making the complaint or appeal is informed of the next steps and the estimated time for a response. Where consideration is prolonged, the editorial office provides progress updates, normally at least once every 30 calendar days. These timeframes do not limit the examination of complex cases and do not guarantee any particular decision.

Authors receive a reasoned response. A concluded appeal may be reconsidered if significant new circumstances are presented. Scholarly disagreements may be discussed through reasoned comments and authors' responses; critical submissions are not rejected solely because they disagree with published conclusions.

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14Corrections, retractions and expressions of concern

A correction is issued when a significant error or inaccuracy needs to be remedied but the principal findings and conclusions remain reliable.

A retraction is issued where there are sufficient grounds to consider the work unreliable because of a serious error, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, impermissible duplicate publication, substantial ethical violations or a compromised assessment process.

An expression of concern may be published where substantial, well-founded doubts exist but the final findings of an examination are not yet available or the examination is seriously delayed.

The notice must identify the article, state the grounds and date of the decision, identify who made it and link to the original publication. The article must also link to the notice. In the case of retraction, its status must be clearly marked and the publication record retained. Agreement from all authors is not a prerequisite for a justified correction of the scholarly record.

A routine retraction does not involve removing the article without a trace. In exceptional circumstances, where retaining the text would breach binding restrictions or create a serious risk to people, access to the relevant content may be restricted while retaining the bibliographic record and an explanatory notice to the extent permissible. Updates are communicated to associated information services through available channels.

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15Artificial intelligence and automated tools

AI systems cannot be authors or assume responsibility for a manuscript. Responsibility for the content, references, data and ethical compliance remains with the people named as authors.

Authors disclose the use of generative AI to create or substantially revise text, translate, prepare code or images, or analyse data. They identify the tool, version or date of use, purpose and method of verifying the output. AI use in research procedures is described in the Methods; assistance with preparing the text is described in a separate statement. Routine spelling and punctuation checks that do not generate new content do not require separate disclosure.

Generated interviews, participant responses, documents, references or statistical results must not be presented as authentic research material. The use of AI to classify offences, assess risk, make predictions or analyse judicial decisions requires a description of data quality, error checks, limitations and potential systematic bias.

Authors, editors and reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts, personal data or restricted material to publicly accessible AI services. A protected tool may be used only where an authorised processing arrangement, a proper basis for access and compliance with editorial requirements are in place. Reviewers carry out their own scholarly assessment and remain responsible for their reports; editorial decisions are not made solely by an automated system.

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16Prior dissemination of material

On submission, authors disclose preprints, dissertations, presentations, reports and other material related to the manuscript, and provide links or copies for comparison.

Posting a preprint or including findings in a dissertation does not automatically constitute unethical duplicate publication. The editorial team assesses the extent of overlap, the distinctiveness of the scholarly contribution, rights to the material and completeness of disclosure. Translating or republishing an already published article requires prior agreement, the necessary permissions and explicit identification of the original source.

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17External guidance

The application of this policy takes account of:

• COPE Core Practices;
• Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing — COPE, DOAJ, OASPA, WAME;
• CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy;
• COPE: Authorship and AI tools;
• COPE: Retraction guidelines;
• applicable national and institutional requirements concerning research, data protection, copyright and access to documents.

Discipline-specific requirements are determined by the nature of the particular study. A criminological focus does not exempt work from specialised ethical assessment where its methods involve additional regulated areas.

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18Policy administration and contact

Following approval by the editorial team, the policy takes effect on the date it is posted on the journal's official website. The page states the effective date and the date of the latest amendment; information about significant changes and previous versions is retained.

New procedural requirements apply from the policy's effective date. Substantiated reports of errors or violations in previously published articles are also considered, taking account of the circumstances and requirements in force when the research was conducted and published.

To forward a communication to the editorial office, the founder’s and publisher’s general contact address — info@uzkti.uz — may be used. The email subject should read: “Criminological Activity: publication ethics”. The Institute’s contact details are available on its official contact page.

The communication should identify the article title, DOI or link where available, describe the matter and provide available supporting information. Participants' personal data and restricted material should not be attached to the initial email: secure transfer arrangements are agreed separately. Communications concerning editorial or publisher personnel are referred to a person without a conflict of interest.

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