SAGE RECEIVES HIGH RANKINGS FOR CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PUBLISHING

SAGE RECEIVES HIGH RANKINGS FOR CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PUBLISHING

Los Angeles, CA (September, 14 ) — SAGE’s Criminology and Criminal Justice Books Division received high rankings when compared to other university and commercial academic presses, according to a study in the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences’ publication Journal of Criminal Justice Education.

Researchers asked respondents from the American Society of Criminology and the American Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences to measure the quality and familiarity rankings of 81 presses from America and abroad that publish in the area of Criminology/Criminal Justice (C/CJ). The excellence of the SAGE program was acknowledged in all three of the categories:

• Ranking and familiarity of the presses – Researchers found that rankings and familiarity did not always match, which suggested that the respondents were ranking the presses based on perceived quality, and just not on “name recognition.”
  --SAGE was the top ranked commercial publisher, following three university presses (Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and the University of Chicago Press)

• Familiarity of the Presses – The familiarity rankings did not clearly lean towards either university or commercial presses, but were interspersed without any clear patterns.
  --SAGE and Prentice-Hall tied in a very close second place to McGraw-Hill.

• Most desired presses to publish academics’ future work – Nine of the top ten in this category were commercial academic presses.
  --SAGE was ranked second after Prentice-Hall

The researchers, Shaun L. Gabbidon, George Higgins and Favian Martin, suggest that these rankings can help scholars interested in writing books to make an informed decision when choosing their publisher. Just like the extra respect earned when academics publish journal articles in a highly-ranked publication, the Criminology and Criminal Justice books published by highly-ranked presses like SAGE will garner additional respect in the market.

“We’re delighted that SAGE’s strong publishing program has been ranked so highly in this study of publishers, since our aim is to become the premier publisher for Criminology and Criminal Justice,” commented Jerry Westby, SAGE Publisher. “These rankings suggest we are in a good position to do just that.”