Journal of Correctional Health Care

Journal of Correctional Health Care

Information for Authors

The only national, peer-reviewed scientific journal to address correctional health care topics, the Journal of Correctional Health Care’s mission is to inform professionals in this field of important trends and developments. JCHC welcomes original manuscripts that report empirical research findings, review the literature in an area of interest, or qualitatively describe case studies or best practices related to common problems in correctional settings. Other contributions may include reviews of recent publications addressing correctional health or related fields and personal essays on correctional health topics.

Editorial Policies

To ensure that JCHC meets the highest standards, its editorial policies are based on the editorial policy statements of the Council of Science Editors in CSE’s White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications. These policies address the following areas:

• Editor Roles and Responsibilities (e.g., editorial freedom; confidentiality; conflicts of interest and disclosure; editorial board participation; timeliness of the publication process; errata, retractions, and expressions of concern; authorship disputes; appeals for reconsideration of rejected manuscripts; allegations or findings of misconduct)
• Authorship and Author Responsibilities (authorship and contributorship models and criteria; acknowledgments, order of authors, changes to the author byline, author responsibilities [e.g., confidentiality, originality, disclosures, copyright assignment, permissions, multiple submissions, public access requirements of funding agencies, human subjects research])
• Reviewer Roles and Responsibilities (reviewer selection, ethical responsibilities of reviewers, reviewer impropriety, use of anonymous reviewers)
• Sponsor Roles and Responsibilities (authorship/contributorship, process control [content and journal selection], disclosure of funding sources and sponsor involvement, access to and provision of data, copyright, sponsor conduct and ethical practices, trial registration and dissemination of findings)
• Relations Between Editors and Publishers, Sponsoring Societies, or Journal Owners
• Responsibilities to the Media

In addition, authors are expected to adhere to JCHC policies governing manuscript development, review, and publication. These policies are based on the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, promulgated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The ICMJE Recommendations address the following areas:

• Roles and Responsibilities of Authors, Contributors, Reviewers, Editors, Publishers, and Owners (e.g., defining the role of authors and contributors, conflicts of interest, the peer review process, editorial freedom, protection of research participants and more)
• Publishing and Editorial Issues Related to Publication in Medical Journals (e.g., corrections and version control, scientific misconduct, retraction, copyright, overlapping publications, correspondence, fees, electronic publishing and more)
• Manuscript Preparation and Submission

Although not all of the CSE policy statements and ICMJE requirements pertain to JCHC, they do address general expectations. Consult the complete policy statements and URMs online at, respectively, http://www.councilscienceeditors.org (see White Paper on Publication Ethics) and http://www.icmje.org.

Authors must submit a statement indicating that the manuscript has not been published previously and will not be submitted to another journal until after notification is received from JCHC. The editor assumes that articles from a particular institution are submitted with appropriate approval. Authors must disclose real or potential conflicts of interest, including corporate financial or material support. The Journal’s editorial policies and instructions for manuscript preparation and submission also are available online at http://www.ncchc.org/ and at http://journals.sagepub.com/home/jcx.

Review Process

The corresponding author will receive notice after the manuscript is received. Manuscripts are subject to blind peer review by at least two correctional health experts. Authors will be notified of the review process results in 3 to 6 months. All manuscripts will be edited to conform to JCHC’s standards and style.

Manuscript Preparation and Submission

Prepare manuscripts, including references, using the style and standards specified in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition (APA). Submit the manuscript via SAGE Track http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jcx. Hard copy and email submissions are not accepted. Manuscripts should be concisely written and limited to approximately 3,000 words, excluding supporting materials such as figures.

Title page includes names of all authors, their credentials, institutional affiliations, and mailing addresses, as well as phone numbers and email addresses of the lead and corresponding authors (if not the same). Omit author names from all subsequent pages. Acknowledgments of credit and research support appear in a footnote. Information about conflicts of interest appears on a separate page. A concise, summary abstract of no more than 125 words precedes the introduction and is followed by four or five keywords.

Authors must obtain written permission from the copyright owner (usually the publisher) for the use of tables, illustrations, or extensively quoted material that has appeared in another publication. See permission guidelines at https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/copyright-and-permissions. Such permissions must be sent with the manuscript, and credit must appear in the corresponding legend.

If tables or figures are used, label them using arabic numbers. Indicate in the manuscript the appropriate position for each table or figure and place them at the end of the manuscript. Submit figures in editable format in black and white only (if color is desired, fees will apply). Format tables as simply as possible (e.g., using tabs, not the table command, in a word processing document, not a spreadsheet). For best print quality, submit images as high-resolution (minimum 300 dpi) black-and-white files in eps, jpg, tif, or pdf formats.

References listed at the end of the article must be cited in the text, and any reference mentioned in the text must appear in the reference list. References must follow APA style.

Submit the manuscript via SAGE Track at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jcx.

If you or your funder wish your article to be freely available online to nonsubscribers immediately upon publication (gold open access), you can opt for it to be included in SAGE Choice, subject to the payment of a publication fee. The manuscript submission and peer review procedure is unchanged. On acceptance of your article, you will be asked to let SAGE know directly if you are choosing SAGE Choice. To check journal eligibility and the publication fee, please visit SAGE Choice. For more information on open access options and compliance at SAGE, including self/author archiving deposits (green open access) visit SAGE Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.