Editorial Policy & Submission Guidelines

Research Papers

The Journal publishes original papers on restorative justice including restorative practices in schools, neighbourhoods, organisations and businesses, family matters and (youth) care, restorative justice in the criminal and juvenile justice system, restorative justice in prison settings and restorative aftercare. The Journal has an international readership and scope. Each article should address the journal’s international audience, which includes academia, policy makers, young people, practitioners and decision-makers. The review process normally takes less than 6 weeks. Your manuscript should be double-spaced, between 5,000 and 8,000 words (including tables, references, and appendices), and conform to APA format.

Please submit your manuscript by complying to the following requirements:

1. Attachment 1 – Title Page to include: The full and short title of the paper, the author’s name and affiliation, contact details including email and postal address and short biography of authors. Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section on the same page entitled ‘Funding’. This should appear before the ‘Acknowledgements’ section, if any;
2. Attachment 2: Anonymised Manuscript without authors’ details for peer review. All pages of the manuscript must be numbered. You must also include a running head (short title) appearing in all pages of the manuscript;
3. Attachment 3: Anonymised structured Abstract Page: Each manuscript requires an abstract of no more than 200 words. Authors must supply a structured abstract on the Article. Please also include in the same page up to 5 keywords;
4. Attachment 4: The signed (scanned) Contributor Release Form.

References should be indicated in the text with the author’s name and year of publication in parenthesis. If there are more than two authors, all should be given on the first occasion, and then the first author “et al” should be used subsequently. All references should be given in alphabetical order on a separate sheet with titles of books and journals given in full. The APA guidelines should be followed for references to a fault.

​Examples: Articles from Journals: Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year) ‘Title of article’ Title of Periodical volume number(issue number): pages

Books: Author, A. A. (Year of publication) ‘Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle’ Location: Publisher

Electronic sources: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication) ‘Title of article’ [Online] http://www.someaddress.com/full/url/ [Accessed on date]Other non print sources: (E. Robbins, personal communication, Jan 4, 2001).

When submitting a manuscript to the IJRJ, please consider joining the global restorative justice movement by signing the International Restorative Justice Pledge.

The journal accepts Opinion Pieces (perspective, commentary, viewpoint). These are succinct, stimulating non-peer reviewed high quality papers that are published alongside research papers. They are not necessarily based on original research, but they do offer an original perspective on the Journal’s interests. You do not need to be a senior researcher or an expert to express your opinion. In fact, this Journal was set up to encourage a plurality of voices and thus we encourage anyone to submit their pieces.

Opinion pieces are reviewed by the Editor only. They are first for eligibility by the Secretariat, and if approved, they are published in pre-print and in a scheduled issue. They should follow the Journal’s objectives and referencing style. They can be between 2,000 – 3,500 words including references and follow the same submission steps as with the research papers. They should be clearly indicated as an opinion piece at the point of submission.

Submission does not imply acceptance as we publish only novel ideas and challenging positions.

The Editor-in-Chief welcomes Reviews of Books and Articles that fall within the Journal’s interest. Your Review should be double-spaced, between 800-1000 words and conform to APA format. It should include all details of the reviewed book including page numbers, ISBN and price. Example:Gavrielides, T. (2014), A victim-led criminal justice system for Europe: Addressing the paradox, London: IARS Publications. ISBN 978-1-907641-27-5. RRP: £10.99, 482 pages.

If English is not your first language, before submitting your manuscript, you may wish to have it edited. This is not a mandatory step, but may help to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication.

The IJRJ® is a double-blind, peer review publication. Submissions are reviewed anonymously and separately by at least two experts. Acceptance of an invitation to review is taken as signifying that the reviewers consider themselves qualified to assess the submission and know of no reason why it would be inappropriate for them to comment on its quality and make a recommendation as to whether or not it should be published. If, as reviewers read a submission, they realise that for any reason it is inappropriate for them to review that article, they are asked to return it to the Editor-in-Chief forthwith and another reviewer is assigned. If reviewers, for any reason, know, or can guess, who has written an anonymous submission which they have been asked to review, they are expected to consider whether a conflict of interest is involved if they know the author to be a close friend or a previous departmental or research colleague; or where they know themselves to be prejudiced either in favour of, or against, specific perspectives, topics or authors. We encourage all our reviewers to follow the COPE Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders to reproduce in both print and online form those illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. Permission must be obtained before submission to the publisher. The acknowledgment should be added to the typescript and the source and copyright of photographs or figures credited in the accompanying captions.

It is a condition of publication that authors vest or license copyright in their articles, including abstracts, in RJ4All Publications. This enables us to ensure full copyright protection and to disseminate the article, and the journal, to the widest possible readership in print and electronic formats as appropriate. Authors may, of course, use the material elsewhere after publication providing that prior permission is obtained from RJ4All. Authors are themselves responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyright material from other sources. Authors whose publication has been accepted by the Journal must complete and sign theIJRJ® Contributors Release Formprior to the publication of their work. All moral rights of the authors are protected and authors are free to (a) Share — copy and redistribute their material in any medium or format (b) Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. For more information please follow the guidelines under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Corresponding authors will receive free electronic copies of their paper.

Funding statements provide transparency to the research reported and give authors the opportunity to demonstrate the impact of their work for future career development.

In line with the COPE guidance of declaring funding sources for research, authors must provide a clear funding statement during submission. The statement should include details of the funding sources, clarify which authors and activities were supported, and specify the role of the funder(s), if any, in the research and publication process.

RJ4all Publications supports the ethical and responsible use of AI tools to assist research or writing.

As part of our commitment to academic integrity and transparency, we require that all submissions reflect original scholarly work and that any use of generative AI tools be clearly acknowledged and used in accordance with COPE position on the use of AI tools. 

Because AI tools cannot take responsibility for the work and therefore do not meet the requirements for authorship, authors are expected to be transparent in disclosing in their paper how and which AI tools have been used. Authors should declare and describe in detail in the methods section (or similar section) the name of the AI tool, the purpose of the use and  the extent of its application. By acknowledging the use of AI, authors foster and build trust among reviewers, readers and distributors and ensure that the tools are used in line with the permitted guidelines.

Similarly, guest editors and peer reviewers have the responsibility to ensure the work we publish aligns with principles of credibility, accountability, integrity, and transparency. Within this work, guest editors and peer reviewers should promote adequate use of AI tools in their evaluation and decisions with clear feedback that is helpful for authors. Both editors and peer reviewers must refrain from using AI tools in their evaluations and decision processes as this might violate the author’s confidentiality and property rights. Furthermore, is it possible that AI tools might generate biased and incorrect evaluations, negatively impacting trustworthy production and dissemination of research.

R4All publications is committed to ensuring dissemination of original and ethical research that represents a positive contribution of knowledge.