Toward a New Methodology for Legal Research in Criminal Justice

Judicial scrutiny of gender-based employment practices in the criminal justice system

“…Circuit Courts of Appeals, U.S. District Courts, and state appellate courts, using the following keywords: "sex discrimination" AND "police" AND "Title VII"; "sex discrimination" AND "corrections" AND "Title VII." The study employed inductive doctrinal legal methodology to identify courts that rule sex was a bona fide occupational qualification for employment in criminal justice agencies (Nolasco, Vaughn, & del Carmen, 2010). Based on the analysis, the article discusses convergence and divergence within the various federal and state courts.…”

Persona Non Grata: The Marginalization of Legal Scholarship in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals

“…The position of law within the criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) discipline is no stranger to controversy, as evidenced by the debate concerning the role of JDs in CCJ departments (Engvall, 2007;Enriquez, 2007Enriquez, , 2008Hemmens, 2008;Hunter, 2008;Myers, 2007) and disputes about whether law courses should even be part of the curriculum (Hemmens, 2015a(Hemmens, , 2016Russell, 1998;Smith, 1996). Recently, a growing chorus of voices has decried the marginalization of both legal scholarship and legal courses within the CCJ discipline and has made a compelling case that it is time to remedy this marginalization (Hemmens, 2015a(Hemmens, , 2015b(Hemmens, , 2016Nolasco, del Carmen, Steinmetz, Vaughn, & Spaic, 2015;Nolasco, Vaughn, & del Carmen, 2010).…”

“…Yet legal courses are relegated to secondary status in CCJ departments, with law courses often offered as electives rather than as required courses (Bufkin, 2004;Griffin, Woodward, Nored, & Johnson, 2013;Hemmens, 2015bHemmens, , 2016Lytle & Travis, 2008), and legal scholarship occupies a place on the periphery of criminal justice scholarship due to misunderstandings about the nature of legal scholarship and its methodology which lead to the devaluation of this form of scholarship (Nolasco et al, 2010).…”

“…Criminal justice PhDs, at least if those scholars are educated in criminal justice departments committed to building legal competency in their graduates, are uniquely qualified to conduct research on legal issues in criminal justice informed by criminal justice concepts and theories and using both legal research and social science methodologies (Nolasco et al, 2015), which can constitute a form of mixed methods research when used in combination (Nolasco et al, 2010). Furthermore, criminal justice scholars who conduct research on legal issues are needed in order to provide criminal justice students with an education provided by instructors who are up-to-date on ever-changing legal issues critical to understanding the functioning of the criminal justice system (Hemmens, 2015b(Hemmens, , 2016.…”

“…It is conventional wisdom among CCJ scholars that it is difficult to get legal scholarship published in CCJ journals. There is anecdotal evidence that legal scholars in CCJ face an obstacle in the form of some journal editors' lack of receptivity to legal scholarship (Hemmens, 2015b), and there is a growing discussion among CCJ scholars about the marginalization of legal scholarship within the CCJ discipline (Hemmens, 2015a(Hemmens, , 2015b(Hemmens, , 2016Nolasco et al, 2015;Nolasco et al, 2010). However, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the representation of legal scholarship in CCJ journals.…”