Aims and scope
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Testimonials
Cover image credit
Contact us

Aims and scope

Justice, Power and Resistance is an international, peer-reviewed journal promoting critical analysis and connecting theory, politics and activism. Working towards social justice, state accountability and decarceration, the journal is primarily a vehicle to make accessible and advance challenging research and scholarship that can be utilised to critically inform contemporary debates and policies. Originally based within the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control, the journal invites academics, practitioners and activists to think critically about the concepts of justice and power, and what the implications of these are for the lives of people most affected by social harms. The focus on resistance is reflective of the endeavour to move this critical knowledge to social action, to harness ways that crimes and harms of the powerful in particular can be resisted, and to support wider understandings of how to mitigate penal expansionism and mitigate harms and violence.

The editors welcome theoretical, normative and empirical studies from interdisciplinary perspectives including sociology, zemiology, geography, law, history, criminology, penology, philosophy, social policy and social theory from scholars and activists. The journal is also committed to enhancing communication and collaboration across critical and radical networks. Consequently, it welcomes open submissions in the following forms:

• Research articles of 6,000 - 8,000 words (including references, notes, tables and figures)
• Interventions (including short papers, campaign updates, personal reflections and (auto)biographical accounts) of up to 5,000 words (including references, notes, tables and figures)
• Book reviews of up to 2,000 words (including references, notes, tables and figures)

The journal also publishes and welcomes ideas for themed special issues

The scope of the journal includes a range of topics including the critical analysis of social harms; theories of state power, authority and legitimacy; gendered and racialised violence; the politics of social control; class, poverty and marginalisation; the legacies of colonialism, neo-colonialism and post colonialism; penal policies and penal practices; harms of the powerful; criminalisation; comparative studies and internationalist standpoints; abolitionist perspectives, social movements engaged in direct struggles of resistance and contestation; interventionist strategies and radical alternatives promoting human rights, social justice and democratic accountability.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion statement outlines the ways in which we seek to ensure that equity, diversity and inclusion are integral to all aspects of our publishing, and how we might encourage and drive positive change. 

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Testimonials 

“This journal is an essential purchase, and will continue to bridge the gap between academics, practitioners and activists in a way not seen by academic journals.”

Craig Kelly, Birmingham City University, UK

"By interrogating the multi-dimensional problem of harm, this journal sheds much needed light on the scale and scope of power, and in the process, reinvigorates debates about the role of resistance in the reclamation of justice" 

Bruce Arrigo, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA

“Justice, Power and Resistance will provide a vital space that brings together innovative empirical research, critical thought, and support for social action across the globe.” 

Keir Irwin-Rogers, The Open University, UK

Cover image credit

Original cover image courtesy of Victor Serri (La Directa, Barcelona) and modified with his permission.

Contact us

Editorial enquiries:

Editorial office: jprjournal@outlook.com

Open acces, subscriptions and free trials:

Policy Press: pp-journals@bristol.ac.uk

Read our instructions for authors for guidance on how to prepare your submissions. The instructions include the following: 

What are we looking for?
How to submit
Editorial review process
Ethical guidelines
Copyright and permissions
Data availability
Style
Alt-text
References
English language editing service
Open Access
Self-archiving and institutional repositories
How to maximise the impact of your article
Contact us

Visit our journal author toolkit for resources and advice to support you through the publication process and beyond.

What are we looking for?

• Research articles: Research articles of between 6- 8,000 words (including references, notes, tables and figures), exploring issues linked to the Journal’s themes of ‘Justice, Power and Resistance’ in an original and thought-provoking way.
• Interventions: Short papers, campaign updates, personal reflections and (auto)biographical accounts of up to 5,000 words (including references, notes, tables and figures), intended to inspire and support social change and the mitigation of various forms of harm. Interventions are reviewed by members of the Editorial team.
• Book reviews: Up to 2,000 word (including references, notes, tables and figures) evaluative summaries of books, identifying their contributions to the broad field of harm, ‘deviance’ and social control. All reviews must provide the following information about the books reviewed: Authors, title, year of publication, publisher, page extent, format (i.e. hardback, paperback, e-book etc.), ISBN, price. Book reviews do not carry abstracts. If prompted for an abstract by the online submission system, please enter ‘N/A’.

How to submit an article

All submissions should be made online via the Justice, Power and Resistance Editorial Manager website: https://www.editorialmanager.com/jprj/default1.aspx 

Editorial Manager

Manuscripts must be in Word or Rich Text Format, not pdf. New users should first create an account, specify their areas of interest and provide full contact details.

Preparing your anonymised manuscript

Your initial submission must consist of the following separate files:

1. A cover page including: the article title, author name(s) and affiliations, the article abstract (up to 250 words), up to 5 key words/short phrases, and the article word count including references. Please include the ORCIDs for all authors on the cover page of your final manuscript to ensure they are published. A cover page template is available to download here.
2. A fully anonymised manuscript which does not include any of the information included in the cover page. It should not include any acknowledgments, funding details, or conflicts of interest that would identify the author(s). References to the authors' own work should be anonymised as follows: "Author's own, [year]". Please note that submissions that have not been sufficiently anonymised will be returned.
3. If you have any Figures and Tables these must be uploaded as separate files at the end of the manuscript. Please indicate where they should be placed in the text by inserting: ‘Figure X here’ and provide numbers, titles and sources where appropriate.
4. In order to improve our accessibility for people with visual impairments, we are now required to ask authors to provide a brief description known as alt text to describe any visual content such as photos, illustrations or figures. It will not be visible in the article but is embedded into the images so a PDF reader can read out the descriptions. Guidance on how to write this is available here: Bristol University Press | Alt-text guidance for authors.

For help submitting an article via Editorial Manager, please view our online tutorial.

Once a submission has been conditionally accepted, you will be invited to submit a final, non-anonymised version.

Checklist: what to include in your final, accepted non-anonymised manuscript

A cover page including:

1. Title: short and concise running title and, if necessary, a (short) informative subtitle;
2. Author names and affiliations (institution affiliation and country only, no department details required);
3. Abstract: no longer than 250 words, outlining the central question, approach/method, findings and take home message;
4. Up to 5 keywords;
5. The ORCIDs for all authors.

The main manuscript including:

1. The non-anonymised text of your article: 6,000 - 8,000 words for Research Articles, 2,000 for Interventions or Book Review submissions.
2. Key messages: Each research article must include 3-4 ‘key messages’ summarising the main messages from the paper in up to four bullet points. The contribution made by the paper to the field should be clear from these key messages. Each bullet point must be less than 100 characters. These points may be used to promote your article on social media.
3. Funding details: list any funding including the grant numbers you have received for the research covered in your article as follows: ‘This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx].’
4. Conflict of interest statement: please declare any possible conflicts of interest, or state ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’ if there are none.
5. Acknowledgements: acknowledge people who have provided you with any substantial assistance or advice with collecting the data, developing your ideas, editing or any other comments to develop your argument or text.
6. Figures and Tables: should be submitted as separate files. Figures should ideally be in an Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) file format. Please indicate where figures and tables should be placed in the text by inserting: ‘Figure/Table X here’ and provide numbers, titles and sources (where appropriate).
7. In order to improve our accessibility for people with visual impairments, we are now required to ask authors to provide a brief description known as alt text to describe any visual content such as photos, illustrations or figures. It will not be visible in the article but is embedded into the images so a PDF reader can read out the descriptions. Guidance on how to write this is available here: Bristol University Press | Alt-text guidance for authors.
8. Supplementary data: We recommend that any supplementary data is hosted in a data repository (such as figshare) for maximum exposure, and is cited as a reference in the article. Short supplementary items can be included as appendices to the article.
9. Journal Contributor Agreement: please upload a scanned copy of the completed and signed journal contributor agreement with your final non-anonymised manuscript. The agreement can be downloaded here.

Editorial review process

All submissions are first desk-reviewed by the editor(s) who will assess whether the manuscript fits the aims and scope as well as the quality standards of the journal. Papers that are selected to be sent out for review will be evaluated through double anonymous peer review by at least two referees. Justice, Power and Resistance aims to return the reviews along with an initial decision within two months of submission.

Please also see our Journals Editorial Policies.

Copyright and permissions

Justice, Power and Resistance is published by Policy Press in association with the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control. Articles are considered for publication on the understanding that on acceptance the author(s) grant(s) Policy Press the exclusive right and licence to publish the article. Copyright remains with the author(s) or other original copyright owners and we will acknowledge this in the copyright line that appears on the published article.

Authors will be asked to sign a copyright agreement to this effect. All authors should agree to the copyright assignment. For jointly authored articles the corresponding author may sign on behalf of co-authors provided that they have obtained the co-authors' consent for copyright assignment. When submitting online, the copyright assignment agreement is considered to be signed when the corresponding author checks the relevant box. The journal contributor agreement can be downloaded here.

Where copyright is not owned by the author(s), the corresponding author is responsible for obtaining the consent of the copyright holder. This includes figures, tables, and excerpts. Evidence of this permission should be provided to Bristol University Press. General information on rights and permissions can be found here.

To request permission to reproduce any part of articles published in Justice, Power and Resistance, please email: bup-permissions@bristol.ac.uk. For information on what is permissible use for different versions of your article please see our policy on self archiving and institutional repositories.
 

Data sharing policy

We are fully supportive of academic data sharing and support the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets) principles. In the humanities and social sciences data sharing can support transparency of research methods, allow others to build on published work, and provide credit to the data creator in the form of citations. We acknowledge that data cannot always be shared due to reasons of confidentiality, consent or legality especially when working with sensitive data or vulnerable populations.

Where appropriate we encourage all authors to include a data availability statement to accompany their article. When using data in your article, the author(s) take(s) responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the analysis. Your statement should either:

1. provide a link to all the data and/or materials, or
2. explain that data and materials will be shared if the manuscript is accepted for publication, or
3. explain why data and/or materials cannot be shared.

More information on our data sharing policy can be found here.

Ethical guidelines

At Policy Press we are committed to upholding the highest standards of review and publication ethics in our journals. Policy Press is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE), and will take appropriate action in cases of possible misconduct in line with COPE guideance.

Find out more about our ethical guidelines.

Style

• British English spelling and punctuation is preferred.
• Non-discriminatory language is mandatory. See our guidelines to sensitive language (appendix C of document).
• Explanatory notes should be kept to a minimum. If it is necessary to use them, they must be numbered consecutively in the text and listed at the end of the article. Please do not embed notes in the text.
• Please do not embed bibliographic references in the text, footnotes, live links or macros; the final submitted file should be clear of track changes and ready for print.
• Tables and charts should be separated from the text and submitted in a Word or Excel file, with their placement in the text clearly indicated by inserting: ‘Table X here’. Please provide numbers, titles and sources (where appropriate).
• Figures, diagrams and maps should be separated from the text and, ideally, submitted in an Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) file. Figures created in Word or Excel are acceptable in those file formats. If the figures, diagrams and maps are in other formats (i.e. have been pasted into a Word file rather than created in it) please contact bup-journalsproduction@bristol.ac.uk for advice. Please indicate where figures should be placed in the text, by inserting: ‘Figure X here’ and provide numbers, titles and sources (where appropriate).
• A comprehensive style guide can be found here (Editorial and Production Guidelines)

Alt-text

In order to improve our accessibility for people with visual impairments, we are now required to ask authors to provide a brief description known as alt text to describe any visual content such as photos, illustrations or figures. It will not be visible in the article but is embedded into the images so a PDF reader can read out the descriptions. See our guidance on writing alt-text.

References

To ensure your bibliography is complete before submitting your final article, we recommend using a reference manager such as Zotero when writing your article. If you cannot find the style under the specific Bristol University Press journal name, the closest format is Zotero "Consumption and Society".

Download the endnote output style for Policy Press and Bristol University Press Journals.

Policy Press uses a custom version of the Harvard system of referencing:

• In-text citations: give the author’s surname followed by year of publication in brackets;
• If there is more than one reference to the same author and year, this should be distinguished by a, b, c, d and so on being added to the year.
• In lists of references given within the text, place in chronological order, from old to new. For example (Smith, 1989; Jones, 1990; Amler, 2002; Brown, 2007).
• List all references in full at the end of the article and remove any references not cited in the text;
• Names should be listed in the references as cited, for example, surnames containing de, De, de la, Le, van, von, Van, Von should be listed under ‘D’, ‘L’ and ‘V’ respectively. If in doubt, check the author ORCID or a recognised database such as Scopus or Web of Science to verify their most known surname.
• For works with multiple authors, list all names up to six. For works with more than six authors, list the first six names followed by ‘et al’.
• Book and journal titles should be in italics;
• Website details should be placed at the end of the reference;
• Ibid/op cit: please do not use; we would prefer that you repeated the information.
• Immediately before submitting your final version, check that all references cited in the text are in the bibliography and that references in the bibliography are cited correctly in the text.

Examples

Book:
Bengtson, V.L. and Lowenstein, A. (2003) Global Aging and its Challenge to Families, Transaction Publishers.

Darling, D. (2010) Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists, Policy Press. 

Book with editor:
Bengtson, V.L. and Lowenstein, A. (eds) (2003) Global Aging and its Challenge to Families, 5th edn, Transaction Publishers.

Chapter in book or in multi-authored publication:
Bengtson, V.L. and Lowenstein, A. (2003) Citizenship in action: the lived experiences of citizens with dementia who campaign for social change, in R. Smith, R. Means and K. Keegan (eds) Global Aging and its Challenge to Families, Transaction Publishers, pp 305–26.

Journal reference:
Williamson, E. and Abrahams, H. A. (2014) A review of the provision of intervention programmes for female victims and survivors of domestic abuse in the UK, Journal of Women and Social Work, 29(1): 178-191. doi: doi.org/10.1177/0886109913516452

Jeffrey, C., Williams, E., de Araujo, P., Fortin-Rochberg, R., O'Malley, T., Hill, A-M., et al (2009) The challenge of politics, Policy & Politics, 36(4): 545–57. doi: doi.org/10.1177/0886108913516454

Website reference:
Womensaid (2016) What is domestic abuse?, https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/.

Management Board

Co-Editors

Nasrul Ismail, University of Bristol, UK
Ida Nafstad, Lund University, Sweden

Consulting Editors

Vicky Canning, Lancaster University, UK
Christina Pantazis, University of Bristol, UK

Associate Editor
Sergio Grossi, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, USA
Aitor Jiménez, University of the Basque Country/ International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Spain

Interventions Section Editors

Liz Kiely, University College Cork, Ireland
Hanna Scott, Linkopings University, Sweden
Becka Hudson, Birkbeck University, UK

Review Editors

Martin Joormann, Karlstads University, Sweden
Ashley Rogers, University of Stirling, UK

International Editorial Collective

Biko Agozino, Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, USA
Vanessa Barker, Stockholm Univerty, Sweden
Andrea Beckmann, Independent Researcher, UK 
Emma Bell, Université de Savoie Mont Blanc, France
Jon Burnett, University of Hull, UK
Bree Carlton, University of Melbourne, Australia
Gilles Chantraine, University of Lille and the French National Centre for Scientific Research, France
Victoria Cooper, Open University, UK
Mary Corcoran, Keele University, UK
Caglar Dolek, California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, USA
Christina Ericson, County Administrative Board of Stockholm County, Sweden 
Giulia Fabini, University of Bolgona, Italy 
Valeria Ferraris, University of Turin, Italy
Sam Fletcher, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Liv S. Gaborit, Lund University, Sweden
Stratos Georgoulas, University of the Aegean, Greece
Joanna Gilmore, University of York, UK
David R Goyes, University of Oslo, Norway
Andrew Jefferson, Danish Institute Against Torture, Denmark 
Christos Kouroutzas, University of the Aegean, Greece
Margaret Malloch, University of Stirling, UK
Agnieszka Martynowicz, Edgehill University, UK
Linda Moore, Univeristy of Ulster, UK
Laura Piancentini, University of Strathclyde, UK
Ana Rodas, Western Sydney University, Australia
Simone Santorso, University of Sussex, UK
David Scott, Open University, UK
Phil Scraton, Queen's University Belfast, UK
Sophie Serrano, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Joe Sim, Liverpool John Moores University, UK 
Katja Simoncic, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Ann Singleton, University of Bristol, UK
Ragnhild Sollund, University of Oslo, Norway
Lizzy Stanley, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Luca Sterchele, University of Padova, Italy
Steve Tombs, Open University, UK
Sarah van Praet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Valeria Vegh Weis, Freie Universitat Berlin/Buenos Aires University, Germany/Argentina
Aimilia Voulvoul, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece 
Tony Ward, University of Northumbria, UK
Richard Wild, University of Greenwich, UK
Dean Wilson, University of Sussex, UK 
Per Jörgen Ystehede, University of Oslo, Norway

Call for Abstracts for Interventions Articles and Book Reviews: Abstract deadline 3 March 2025
Special issue on Fear and Looting in the Periphery: Approaching Social Harm in Southern Europe.

We invite expressions of interest for writing Interventions Articles and Book Reviews as part of an upcoming Special Issue of Justice, Power and Resistance. This Special Issue will bring together academics and activists from fields such as critical criminology, geography, transformative justice, abolitionism, and alternatives to imprisonment. Contributors will explore the diverse ways in which states and corporations perpetrate social harm in Southern Europe. We aim to publish this Special Issue of Justice, Power and Resistance in 2027.

Border controls leaving tens of thousands of bodies in the Mediterranean. A justice system that funnels the poor and racialized into cycles of incarceration, while torturers remain on the public payroll. Political and judicial powers legislating and enforcing the criminalization of protest. An education system increasingly segregated, where the poor are confined to underfunded public schools, while the middle and upper classes retreat to private institutions. The dismantling of public healthcare. Care services outsourced and turned into commodities. Real estate bubbles inflated by vulture funds and large landowners, suffocating the population. Ecocides, slow and local—like the destruction of the Mar Menor in Spain or the unrelenting fires devouring Portugal and Greece—or fast and global, as with the climate crisis gripping the Mediterranean. The expansion of state and corporate surveillance, mounting workplace deaths, the skyrocketing consumption of antidepressants. Suicide becoming an ever more common cause of death. What is the common denominator of all this gigantic social suffering?

For some, these events are connected only by their catastrophic and terrible nature; they may call it luck, history, or even destiny. Others justify these outcomes as inevitable results of political economy—like the thousands of elderly people who died during the COVID-19 pandemic due to decisions made by political leaders, who saw it as the fair cost of preserving the tourism industry in countries like Italy and Spain.

Historically, affected people and the collectives of organised society have resisted the denial, justification and invisibilisation of social suffering. Through practice they have denied the historical inevitability of what the powerful call progress, growth and order. Beyond revolutionary practice, the reflections of these and other movements have shown that the social suffering of the many is not determined by natural laws, but by social processes that work for the benefit of the few. In other words, revolutionary practice has shown that the enormous social suffering endured by the majority is the result of recognisable acts and processes articulated around ideas, practices and structures designed to benefit the few.

In the wake of these movements a growing number of social scientists from disciplines such as criminology, sociology and geography have turned to the analysis of these processes. Some have focused on the study of those behaviours that, despite causing immense social harm, seldom receive a legal or political response, what are known in the literature as 'crimes of the powerful'. They are guided by questions such as: who, how and supported by which social, economic and political structures perpetrate this social harm? Others focus on the understanding and scope of social harm, as well as the impact, consequences and responses of victim-survivors. In the same vein, other researchers are engaged in the study of restorative and transformative mechanisms that, through non-punitive approaches, enable both the repair of harm and the construction of a social structure that does not require repressive institutions or prisons. 

Unfortunately, most of these critical voices come from a handful of countries in the Global North. We have read and learned from them. But while they are deeply interesting, neither their theories nor their case studies can be taken as universal answers. But it is not only necessary to provincialise the scholarship produced in the central countries. It is also essential to generate critical apparatuses that are contextualised in each region and capable of investigating its reality.

This Special Issue will explore some of the following issues from a situated and contextual perspective in Southern Europe:

• Ecocide, climate change and other environmental damage.
• Labour exploitation
• Privatisation of public service
• Dispossession
• Finance
• Genocide (and its complicities)
• Borders
• Structural and state racism
• Criminal Justice System
• Police
• Prisons (and their abolition)
• Political Corruption
• Urbanism
• Squatting (and de-squatting)
• Criminalisation of protest
• Mass surveillance
• Health, mental health

Information for contributors

Abstracts (250 words) should be sent to the editors at jprjournal@outlook.com, aitor.jimenez@ehu.eus and maria.sarasola@ehu.eus by 3 March 2025.

Interventions (including short papers, campaign updates, personal reflections and (auto)biographical accounts) of up to 5,000 words (including references, notes, tables and figures). 

Book reviews of up to 2,000 words (including references, notes, tables and figures)

Authors will be notified whether their abstract has been selected for the Special Issue by April 2025.

Please see our author instructions for guidance on preparing and submitting your book review and interventions full article.

If you would like to discuss your submission please contact the Special Issue editors at jprjournal@outlook.com, aitor.jimenez@ehu.eus and maria.sarasola@ehu.eus.

Key dates and deadlines  

Deadline for abstracts March 2025 
Notification to authors of the editors’ initial decision: April  2025
Deadline to submit full article November 2025
Notification to authors of first decisions including revisions to be made: February 2026
Final revision deadline November 2026
Anticipated publication  Mid-2027
 

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