Research on policing in East Asia: a review of SSCI policing specialty journals

Abstract

Purpose – Little information on dissemination of publications on policing issues in East Asia in which one-fifth of the world's population lives is available. The research questions for the paper are: how extensive is the coverage of papers focussing on policing in East Asia; on which East Asian countries have the papers covered during the 14-year period from 2000 to 2013; what are the topics/primary issues of policing in East Asia covered across the journals; and what are the affiliations represented of authors who have published papers on policing in East Asia. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This study is a content analysis of major policing specialty journals listed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) in terms of the number and focus of studies on East Asian police papers. Data came from 1,123 papers published in three policing journals of Police Quarterly, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, and Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy during the period of 2000-2013. Findings – Only 3.4 percent (n=38) of the 1,123 articles published in the three journals were on policing issues in East Asia nations. The vast majority (76.3 percent) were published in Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management. Staff issue was the most frequently researched topic. In total, 42 percent of the papers were on South Korean policing issues, followed by 31 percent on Chinese policing topics. Finally, about 45 percent of the papers were written by only US-affiliated authors, 40 percent by authors affiliated with institutions in East Asia, and only 16 percent were written in collaboration between authors associated with USA and East Asian institutions. Originality/value – The main intent of this study is to provide information seekers with a guide to what research on policing in East Asia is being published.

Twenty Years of Law Journal Publishing: A Comparative Analysis of International Publication Trends

“…The rising advocacy for greater internationalization within criminological fields [5,50] have recently motivated several efforts to empirically assess the internationality of criminology and criminal justice. Accordingly, compared to the abovementioned studies, we find more direct measures of internationality in the works of Barberet [5], Kim and Merlo [33], Kim et al [32,35,36], Faraldo-Cabana and Lamela [26], and Messner [37].…”

“…Although the tradition of bibliometrics-that precedes scientific applicationsappears to be historically inseparable from the legal world [43,44], the literature of bibliometric studies concerning the topic of internationality of academic legal research is relatively scarce compared to other fields, for instance, geographics [4,27], information science [48], international relations [40], or psychology [2,10]. The existing literature typically focuses on the field's internationality as indicated either by the most influential scholars [15,16,25] or by specific journals [26,32,[35][36][37].…”

“…Similarly, various studies conducted by Kim and colleagues set out to indicate the progress of internationalization within criminology and criminal justice as presented on the levels of policing [36], juvenile justice [32] and women specialty [35]. Kim et al [36] analyzed 1123 papers published in the three major policing journals of Police Quarterly, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, and Policing during the period of 2000-2013 to assess the prevalence of articles concerning policing in East Asian countries, a region accounting for one-fifth of the world's population. Their study found that only about 3.4% (n = 38) of the articles published concerned East Asian policing.…”

South Korean business owners' perceptions of community policing in the Baltimore City

“…Although, Hwang et al (2005) While American culture is grounded in the Aristotelian individualism, South Korean culture is grounded in Confucius collectivism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999;Kim, Lin, & Lambert, 2014). Thus, Confucianism significantly contributed in forming the perceptions of South Korean public and police in South Korea.…”

“…Thus, while the cultural cognitions of South Korean people are rooted from Confucian principles of collectivism, the cultural cognitions of American people are rooted from Aristotle's individualism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999;Kim, Lin, & Lambert, 2014). South Korean cultural traditions make much of informal social control based on group solidarity and moralist traditions of Confucianism, whereas Western cultural traditions make much of public social controls via the criminal justice system (Hwang, McGarrell, and Benson, 2005).…”