Submissions

Author Guidelines

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS / BRAZILIAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL SCIENCES (RBCCrim)

Editorial policy established by the editorial team in accordance with the RBCCrim editorial board, subject to periodic review (Last updated: May/2021)

General Information

Name: Brazilian Journal of Criminal Sciences (RBCCrim)
Publisher: Brazilian Institute of Criminal Sciences (IBCCRIM)
Emeritus Coordinator: Alberto Silva Franco
Format: Print (Published by Thomson Reuters)
Year of Establishment: 1992 (ongoing publication)
Frequency: Monthly
Manuscript submission: Rolling submissions and special calls for papers

ISSN (Print): 1415-5400
ISSN (Online): 2965-3967
Qualis Rating: A2

Editorial Scope

The Brazilian Journal of Criminal Sciences aims to publish scholarly works related to criminal sciences, including Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Criminology. It also accepts interdisciplinary work from the fields of humanities and social sciences, provided the contributions engage with issues pertinent to criminal sciences.

To better organize its editorial scope, the journal is divided into the following sections:
(a) Criminal Law;
(b) Criminal Procedure;
(c) Criminology.

In pursuit of developing rigorous and impactful knowledge in criminal sciences, the journal also publishes critical commentary on case law—preferably from higher and international courts—and legal opinions. In dialogue with academia, the journal publishes critical book reviews, interviews, and research reports. These contributions are primarily featured in the section (d) “Law by Those Who Make It” or may be presented as standalone entries.

Editorial Roles and Responsibilities

Editors must act in accordance with integrity guidelines, objectively and impartially, without any form of discrimination or interests beyond the scientific merit of the research (PKP Guide: https://pkpschool.sfu.ca/courses/becoming-an-editor/). Editorial responsibilities are divided as follows:

Editorial Team: Editors are responsible for the entire editorial process, including preliminary screening (desk review), assignment to reviewers, analysis of peer reports, and final decision.

The RBCCrim Editorial Team is composed of Editors-in-Chief, Assistant Editors, Associate Editors, and Executive Editors.

Editors-in-Chief: The Editor-in-Chief supervises the editorial process, sets the journal’s policy alongside other editors and board members, and performs the initial manuscript screening (desk review). They assign articles for peer review and decide on requests for review of decisions or reports of non-compliance. They represent the journal and are responsible for its promotion. Editors-in-Chief may manage editorial processes of specific sections or designate an Assistant or Associate Editor.

Assistant Editors: Responsible for managing the editorial process and supporting the Editors-in-Chief in organizing and overseeing the journal. They are assigned to specific sections and work under the supervision of the Editor-in-Chief.

Associate Editors: Guest editors appointed to coordinate thematic dossiers.

Editorial Board: Composed of PhD-level scholars with significant contributions to criminal sciences.

Reviewers: Master’s or PhD-level researchers with notable academic production in criminal sciences.

Submission Rules

Submissions must be made through the RBCCrim website, following completion of the required submission form. Articles must strictly adhere to the conditions set forth in this document.

4.1. Submission Requirements

Academic Degree: A minimum academic degree of Master’s is required for both authors and co-authors. Exceptions may be made for authors recognized for their outstanding knowledge and contributions to the legal community, as acknowledged by peers, provided all other rules of the journal and evaluation agencies are respected.

Originality: Articles must not have been published in any other scientific journal and/or communication outlet. It is important to note that “originality” is not to be confused with “novelty”: the article's subject may have been addressed by other authors or publications. All submissions undergo anti-plagiarism software screening. Texts made available online, published abroad (even in another language), or published in conference proceedings are not considered original. However, condensed versions of Master’s dissertations or PhD theses are accepted, even if fully published in institutional repositories, as long as they show substantive development and improvement based on further research or academic debate.

In any of the above scenarios, when an identical or substantially similar work has been published by the author in another outlet, even in a different language, this must be explicitly stated in the manuscript and communicated to the editor at the time of submission. Failure to do so will result in a one-year submission ban.

Translations: Translations may be submitted for consideration if accompanied by authorization from the original author(s) and, where necessary, from the publisher holding the rights. Final publication will be subject to the editorial team’s discretion.

Simultaneous Submissions: Once an article is submitted to RBCCrim, it cannot be simultaneously submitted to another journal. Violation of this rule results in a one-year submission ban. Likewise, no author or co-author may submit more than one article at a time to RBCCrim.

Language: Submissions are accepted in Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, German, or Italian.

Resubmission Interval: Once an article (including legal opinions, etc.) is published in RBCCrim, the author must wait six months before submitting another manuscript as author or co-author.

IBCCRIM Coordinators and RBCCrim Editors: Members of IBCCRIM or the RBCCrim editorial team may submit articles, provided all general and exogeneity rules of the journal are followed. If approved, these submissions will be included in the “invited authors” quota.

4.2. Book Reviews, Legal Opinions, Case Comments, Interviews, and Research Reports (“Law by Those Who Make It”)

Book Reviews: Purely descriptive reviews are not accepted. Only critical reviews of books relevant to the journal’s editorial scope are published. Reviews must include citations from additional references and go beyond a mere summary. Text length should be appropriate to ensure full understanding of the reviewed content (see Item 2, b).

Case Comments: May be submitted and will be published under the same criteria, with a maximum of 20 pages. Submissions must present a critical analysis of the ruling, referencing significant academic sources.

Legal Opinions: Must address relevant and current issues that demonstrate the practical implementation of important theoretical debates in criminal sciences. They should be supported by solid and up-to-date references. If any form of funding is involved, it must be clearly indicated in a footnote to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

Interviews: May be proposed or submitted for publication and must comply with the journal’s general formatting and content guidelines, as well as SciELO's specific recommendations: SciELO Interview Guidelines

Review Process: Reviews, case comments, legal opinions, and interviews are evaluated by the RBCCrim editorial team, based on relevance, scientific merit, and alignment with the journal’s scope. These contributions are not subject to double-blind peer review.

Research Reports: Will be accepted only if linked to research projects previously approved by educational or research institutions. In cases of multiple authorship, at least one co-author must hold a PhD, and all contributors must submit a statement outlining their specific contributions. Peripheral contributions (less than 20%) will not be considered.

4.3. Mandatory Formal Requirements

Articles must be submitted in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx), and must be preceded by a cover page containing the following information:

• Title of the article

• Author(s)' full name(s)

• Academic credentials (educational status, degrees with year of completion, institutional affiliations, and current primary occupation)

• Full mailing address

• Phone number

• Email address

• Link to the LATTES CV (for Brazilian authors)

• ORCID iD

The following formatting standards must also be observed:

• Articles must be between 20 and 40 pages in length, with a margin of two pages above or below that range.

• Critical book reviews must not exceed 15 pages.

• Text should use Times New Roman font, size 12, with 1.5 line spacing.

• Top and bottom margins should be 2.0 cm; left and right margins 3.0 cm.

• Paper size should be set to A4.

• Paragraphs must be justified, without indentation or spacing before or after headings.

The article must include the following, both in the original language and in English:

• Title

• Abstract (up to 200 words)

• Five keywords

In addition, articles must include:

• Title / Título

• Abstract / Resumo

• Keywords / Palavras-chave

• Table of Contents (in the article’s original language only)

Table of contents must be numbered using Arabic numerals, with up to three hierarchical levels. For example:
Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Environmental Civil Liability: Legislation
    2.1 Classical Norms
    2.2 Innovations
     2.2.1 Ecological Damage
     2.2.2 Strict Liability
   Final Considerations.
   References.

Articles must contain distinct sections for the Introduction, Final Considerations (Conclusion), and References.

RBCCrim will not be responsible for adding missing components such as abstracts, keywords, or table of contents, which are the sole responsibility of the author.

Article titles must be concise and clearly reflect the topic and the scope of the research.

Author Affiliations must follow this model:

• Begin with the highest academic degree (listed from most to least recent);

• If engaged in teaching, include relevant institutional details after the degree;

• Add any associations or institutions the author is part of, specifying city and state;

• Conclude with the current professional occupation (if outside academia);

• Provide an email contact.

Example:
PhD in Law from UFSC. Professor of Criminology at the Faculty of Law of UFPE. Member of IBCCRIM. Attorney. ORCID. Email.

Anonymization:
Authors must remove any identifying information from the manuscript to ensure anonymous peer review.

Funding Disclosure:
Authors must indicate in a footnote any financial support or benefits received from commercial entities (e.g., if the article is the result of a commissioned legal opinion), and declare that there is no conflict of interest compromising the scientific integrity of the work. If the work results from research funded by public agencies (excluding undergraduate or graduate scholarships, or standard funding such as PROEX, PROAP, PROSUP), the specific call or grant must be referenced in a footnote.

References must follow NBR 6023/2018 (ABNT). Full bibliographic references should appear only in the References section at the end.
Example:
BATISTA, Nilo. Concurso de Agentes: uma investigação sobre os problemas da autoria e da participação no direito penal brasileiro. 2nd ed. Rio de Janeiro: Lumen Juris, 2004.
Footnotes should not contain full citations, only abbreviated forms using author/date/page (e.g., BATISTA, 2004, p. 45), which may also be used in the body of the text, enclosed in parentheses.

Foreign terms must appear in italic.

Direct quotations must comply with NBR 1052 (ABNT/2002):

• Quotations of up to three lines should be included in the body of the paragraph within double quotation marks.

• Quotations of more than three lines should be indented 4 cm from the left margin, in font size 10, single-spaced, and without quotation marks.

Example of an indented quotation:

Teleconferencing allows individuals to participate in national or regional meetings without leaving their location. Common types of teleconferencing include television, telephone, and computer use. Through audio conferencing with a local phone company, an audio signal can be broadcast in a room of any size. (NICHOLS, 1993, p. 181).

Legislative or jurisprudential references must include all necessary data for proper identification and retrieval.

Web sources must include the phrase “Available at:” followed by the URL, and the date of access preceded by “Accessed on:”. Dates must follow the ABNT standard format (e.g., 20 Aug. 2012; 15 Sep. 2018).

Tables, charts, diagrams, and figures must be inserted as images to prevent formatting errors during layout.

4.4. Mandatory Material Requirements

Submissions to the Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure sections must present innovative dogmatic contributions. Texts that are merely opinion-based, simple literature reviews, or compilations of case law will not be accepted. Submissions must adhere to the methodological standards of the normative field of criminal sciences and demonstrate critical intra- and/or extra-dogmatic analysis.

Submissions to the Criminology section must offer relevant contributions to criminological science, fully engaging with its themes, problems, and methods. Articles consisting exclusively of opinion, lacking empirical grounding, or limited to literature reviews will not be accepted. In addition to empirical research, theoretically grounded essays that address epistemological or methodological challenges in the field will be considered.

Failure to meet these material requirements may result in preliminary rejection.

Scientific Character

Articles must be scientific in nature, clearly defining and addressing one or more specific research problems, summarizing prior studies on the topic, and informing readers of the current state of research in that area. Furthermore, the work should aim to identify relationships, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the literature and propose solutions to the identified problems.

Preference will be given to articles that provide an original, unpublished, and effective contribution to criminal sciences, grounded in robust theoretical references and/or novel empirical data. Articles must serve as reliable sources for readers to understand the current state of the field and must include references for all cited content. Where applicable, authors must identify and justify any statistical correction methods used in the research.

Peer Review and Publication Process

The editorial process consists of the following stages:

Preliminary Formal Check (Desk Review)

Upon receipt, manuscripts undergo a preliminary evaluation by the journal's editors (chief, assistant, executive, or associate editors), which determines whether they proceed to peer review. This stage assesses the article’s formal aspects and its alignment with the journal’s scope and editorial line, considering the following criteria:

• Does the submission comply with RBCCrim’s formal publication standards? (submission procedure, minimum academic qualification, maximum number of authors—3, formatting, originality, etc.)

• Is the article aligned with the journal's editorial line and policies?

• Does the manuscript include the essential components of a scientific article (object, hypothesis, topic, research problem, justification, theoretical foundation)?

• Is the writing scientifically appropriate and free of excessive language errors?

• Is the topic current and/or relevant?

• Does the article use updated references from both Brazilian and international scholars representative of the field?

• Does the content meet the journal’s material requirements?

If a manuscript is rejected during this stage, the author will be notified and will receive the rejection report. The article may be resubmitted for future volumes provided that it remains unpublished elsewhere and the identified issues have been addressed.

Peer Review

If peer reviewers issue divergent recommendations, the article will be sent to a third reviewer, or the editorial coordination may resolve the conflict by issuing an independent opinion.

Peer reviewers may:

• Reject the article

• Approve the article

• Approve the article with revisions

If revisions are requested, the author will be notified of the suggested changes and may either implement them or justify maintaining the original version. In any case, the final decision on publication rests with the editorial team, which may request multiple rounds of revision if the author's justifications for not accepting suggestions are deemed insufficient.

All anonymous reports (with reviewer identities hidden) will be made available to the authors.

If rejected, the article may be resubmitted only if the issues raised by reviewers have been fully addressed. The revised manuscript will then undergo a new double-blind peer review.

Ethical Research Integrity Requirements

RBCCrim is guided by the following ethical principles:

Authorship

All individuals who contributed to the research must be credited as authors. Each author must have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for its content. Author contributions must include:
a) conception, design, or analysis and interpretation of data, or both;
b) drafting of the manuscript or critical revision with substantial intellectual content;
c) final approval of the version to be published.
Mere participation in data collection does not justify authorship.

Co-authorship

For works resulting from collective research, each co-author must have made a direct and substantial intellectual contribution and given consent for publication. Financial or infrastructural support alone does not warrant co-authorship.

Plagiarism Prohibition

When a concept or formulation used in the manuscript is not clearly part of the public domain in the research area, it is presumed to be an original contribution. Otherwise, it must be explicitly credited, under penalty of plagiarism.

Self-Plagiarism Prohibition

If the same or a substantially similar work has been published elsewhere, even in another language, this must be expressly stated in the manuscript and disclosed to the editor during submission. Omission of this information constitutes self-plagiarism.

Responsibility

The author—or in the case of co-authorship, each author—is responsible for the overall quality of the work, unless their individual contribution is explicitly and precisely limited.

Research Involving Human Subjects

(e.g., interviews or questionnaires):
Must be approved by an ethics committee affiliated with the author’s institution or registered on the Brazilian Plataforma Brasil system. The manuscript must clearly identify the committee, institution, and approval protocol number, either in the body of the text or in a footnote.

Informed Consent (ICF)

If participants can be identified based on the nature or circumstances of the research, written informed consent (Termo de Consentimento Livre e Esclarecido – TCLE) must be obtained and provided.

Conflict of Interest

Authors must disclose any potential conflict of interest at the time of submission. The editorial team will evaluate whether the scientific integrity of the work has been compromised.

Data Responsibility

Sources

All data cited must include appropriate source references.

Confidentiality Agreement

If data were obtained under a confidentiality agreement, the respective document must be submitted at the time of manuscript submission to ensure compliance.

Data Manipulation

Any use of statistical correction methods must be properly identified and justified in the manuscript.

7.1. Editorial Parameters and Misconduct Review Process

The Brazilian Journal of Criminal Sciences (RBCCrim) aims to produce consistent scientific knowledge through an editorial process grounded in rigorous control, evaluation, and revision standards, in alignment with national and international guidelines on scientific publishing. The editorial process is guided by the following reference frameworks:

• Brazilian Association of Scientific Editors (ABEC)

• PKP Guides for Editors and Reviewers

• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)

• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) – Best Practice Guidelines

• FAPESP Code of Good Scientific Practice

• CNPq Basic Guidelines for Research Integrity

• Elsevier’s Publishing Ethics Resource Kit (PERK) for editors

• SciELO’s Best Practices for Strengthening Ethics in Scientific Publication

Investigation of Suspected Misconduct

Reports and suspicions of acts that may violate scientific integrity will be analyzed by the RBCCrim editorial team, with due respect for due process and reasoned decisions. External specialists may be consulted to issue opinions, when appropriate.

Any person may report suspected violations of the scientific integrity guidelines at any time via email: ???? revista@ibccrim.org.br

Sanctions for Proven Violations of Editorial and Scientific Integrity

The following sanctions may be applied—individually or cumulatively—to those found to have committed a violation of editorial or scientific integrity standards:

• An instructive notice regarding the issue;

• A formal warning;

• Publication of a note or editorial on the issue;

• Notification to the author’s affiliated institution or research funding agency;

• Suspension or removal of the reviewer or editor from the journal;

• Retraction of the published article (see: SciELO Retraction Guidelines);

• Prohibition of new submissions for a defined period;

• Notification to competent authorities for further investigation.

Editorial Responsibility

Peer review must be conducted with rigor, objectivity, impartiality, and timeliness. The commitment to a high-quality evaluation must take precedence over deadlines or convenience. Differences in judgment should not, by themselves, justify a negative evaluation.

Reviewers must treat all materials with confidentiality and must not use any information accessed during the evaluation process for personal benefit.

A reviewer must recuse themselves from evaluating a manuscript if there is a potential conflict of interest, such as an ongoing academic collaboration (e.g., co-authorship, advising, joint research) or a familial or personal relationship with any of the authors.

Any verified ethical violations will be thoroughly examined by the editorial coordination of RBCCrim and addressed through study, deliberation, and appropriate action.

7.5. Privacy Policy and Reviewer Rights

The names and contact information provided to this journal will be used solely for the purposes of the services offered by this publication and will not be made available for other uses or to third parties.

RBCCrim uses a double-blind peer review system, meaning that authors and reviewers remain anonymous to each other during the evaluation process. Reviewer identity is kept confidential when feedback is shared with authors.

With regard to reviewer reports: although the journal uses a double-blind review process (in which authors and reviewers are unaware of each other's identity), after the editorial decision is finalized, reviewers are allowed to disclose their reviews publicly. For instance, reviewers are encouraged to upload their reviews to the Publons platform. Reviewer reports are considered the intellectual property of their authors, who may choose to make them public.

Conversely, authors may not disclose reviewer reports unless explicit authorization is given by the reviewer.

By submitting a manuscript to RBCCrim, the author consents to the potential disclosure of the reviewer’s opinion, for example, on Publons, once the editorial decision has been made.

7.6. Copyright

Authors retain the copyright of the published articles, while the journal retains rights to first publication. Authors may reuse the content in other publications, provided that the original publication in this journal is clearly credited. Failure to do so will be considered self-plagiarism.

Therefore, full or partial reproduction of articles published in this journal is allowed only with explicit reference to the original source, including volume, issue, and DOI link, if available.