About the Journal
Sponsoring Organization & Publishing Partners
Operational Philosophy on Publication Cycle
Aims & Scope
The Journal of Forensic Social Work (JoFSW) is the principal journal guiding practitioners and researchers involved in day-to-day practice issues with the legal system. The journal is devoted to increasing the general knowledge base, promoting evidence-based and ethically informed practice, improving services for victims and offenders of crime, and setting guidelines and practice standards for the provision of forensic mental health services.
JoFSW addresses a broad range of issues faced by social workers and other professionals who practice in the judicial arena. The journal was established to provide a forum for the discussion of important policy and social justice issues within forensic practice as well as the dissemination of empirical research on legal issues, systems of care, and on the management and treatment of victims of crime and criminal offenders. The journal addresses contemporary forensic practice issues to provide practitioners, social researchers, and students with leading-edge information in an ever-evolving field.
Sponsoring Organization & Publishing Partners
JoFSW is the official journal of its sponsoring organization, the National Organization of Forensic Social Work.
The journal was launched in 2011 and published by Taylor & Francis until 2015. It was then relaunched in 2022 as an open access journal published bi-annually by the University of Oklahoma Libraries, with the support of the Ruth Knee Institute for Transformative Scholarship and the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work at the University of Oklahoma.
Operational Philosophy on Publication Cycle
JoFSW is committed to a continued pursuit of improvement and takes a bold position in working toward that end. We recognize this strategy lends itself not only to the fruits of progress, such as the enhancement of access through organizational, community, and university partnerships, but also to learning opportunities along the way. For example, in volume 7(1) JoFSW piloted a rolling publication cycle and decided for 7(2) to move back to a more traditional release cycle, with volumes published every spring and fall.
There will undoubtedly be more fluctuation in the future as we accept, philosophically, that progress requires both daring and data driven decision making. We will continue to pilot new approaches to the publication process and measure effectiveness to adjust our strategies along the way. We are excited for the opportunity to be able to continue to grow and eager to have you along for the journey.
Open Access Publishing Model
JoFSW is unapologetic in the pursuit of democratizing the dissemination of research related to forensic social work, and to that end, the journal flipped to an open access publishing model when it relaunched in 2022. Since then, JoFSW has provided immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. All content in JoFSW is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of open access.
Users may subscribe to the journal at no cost by clicking on the Subscribe link in the top right hand corner of the journal. By creating an account, users may opt in to being notified via email when new volumes are published.
Additionally, there is no cost for authors to submit manuscripts. JoFSW does not charge any article processing fees (APCs) for any submissions or publications. Additional information and author guidelines can be found on the Submissions page.
Copyright & Licensing
From 2011 to 2015, JoFSW was published by Taylor and Francis. In May 2016, the National Organization of Forensic Social Work obtained ownership of the title rights and copyright of all articles previously published by Taylor & Francis under the Routledge imprint, which include all of volumes 1 through 5. At this time, the articles in those volumes are freely available but remain under copyright. As time permits, JoFSW intends to transfer copyright of those articles back to the authors and make the content available under a Creative Commons license whenever possible.
In 2022, JoFSW relaunched as an open access journal, and beginning with Volume 6, authors retain copyright of their work by default. Unless otherwise noted, works published in JoFSW since 2022 are also distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivatives License (CC BY-NC-ND). By granting a CC BY-NC-ND license in their work, authors retain copyright ownership of the work, while allowing others to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
Indexing
To further demonstrate its commitment as a reputable open access journal, as of 2024, JoFSW is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
Peer Review
All articles published in this journal have undergone editorial screening and double-anonymous peer review.
Plagiarism Statement
Articles published in this journal undergo plagiarism screenings at each step of the publication process. Submissions are randomly checked for plagiarism using the plagiarism software package TurnitIn, in addition to other web-based resources.