About the Journal

The RBDPP adopts a double-blind peer review evaluation system, preceded by preliminary control by the editorial team, which also consolidates the external evaluations of the reviewers together with the additional suggestions at the time of the preliminary decision. In the corrections rounds, the authors are not obligated to comply with all recommendations, but they should adequately motivate eventual refusals, which will be controlled by the editorial team. In any situation, the final decision about publishing the paper is made by the journal's editorial team. Editorial decisions are subject to appeal, which must be forwarded by e-mail and will be decided by the editor-in-chief.

Considering openness and transparency in peer review, at the end of each published article there is a table with all the dates of the editorial process and the identification of the editors involved. If authors and evaluators agree, the editorial team can facilitate direct interaction between these researchers to expand the improvements to the submitted article. In addition, excellent reviews can be published in the journal in the “scientific reviews” section. RBDPP authorizes the publication of the reviews by the evaluators in certification systems, such as Publons.

The journal is indexed in Scopus and WoS (ESCI), as well as cataloged in Dialnet, Latindex (1.0 and 2.0), HeinOnline, Google Scholar, etc. The journal received ERIH Plus and ANVUR A rating in Italy.

Only unpublished and original articles (exclusively submitted to RBDPP) are accepted, except for invited authors in the foreseen cases and deposits of preprint versions on certified servers.

Plagiarism is prohibited (third party or self-plagiarism), and its control is done by manual searches (in Google) and through the Turnitin application. Plagiarism is prohibited (third party or self-plagiarism), and its control is done by manual searches (in Google) and through Turnitin, during the desk review and the peer review. The editorial team will carry out a qualitative analysis of the report and will verify the quotes of similarity indicated. Determined percentages are not adopted as a limit, but the marked sections are checked to verify possible similarities. If there are elements that indicate the considerable absence of due citation, the article will be preliminarily rejected. If similar excerpts can be corrected and there are no indications of misconduct, the article will be returned to the author for corrections.

Regarding the use of artificial intelligence tools (such as ChatGPT and others), in addition to the integrity and plagiarism parameters in general, the following guidelines are adopted: 1. artificial intelligence mechanisms (such as ChatGPT) do not meet the requirements for co-authorship; 2. Authors must declare (in the methodology or acknowledgments) the use of artificial intelligence mechanisms in writing the article and/or in other phases of scientific research; 3. Authors are responsible for errors, plagiarism and other bad practices that may occur in their research due to the use of artificial intelligence mechanisms.

Articles can be written in Portuguese, English, Spanish or Italian. It is recommended attention to the use of inclusive language and to the diversity of references. Citations can be made in author-date system or complete in footnote, according to the Brazilian Association of Technical Rules (ABNT) and RBDPP citation policy.

Scientific integrity policies are adopted complying with reference institutions, like ABEC, COPE, Scielo, etc. Any conflict of interest (such as funding or professional actions that impact the sustained ideas) should be referred to the editorial team by the authors. In cases of co-authored articles, it is requested to include a co-authored declaration at the end of the paper for publication, specifying the contributions of each author (complying to CRediT CASRAI taxonomy).

Complaints and suspicious of acts that violate the scientific integrity guidelines will be analyzed by the RPDPP editorial team, observing the right of the defense and the motivation of the decision, with possible application of the penalties provided, as retraction of the paper and communication to institutions associated with the authors.

The journal offers immediate free access to all its content and all articles receive an individual DOI registration. The copyrights for the published articles belong to its author. Considering its qualification as an open access journal, the free use of the articles is allowed, but the reference to the original source is obliged, according to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.  Archiving of the final PDF published is allowed without restrictions on any open access server, repository or personal website.

The journal adopts and complies with the DOAJ definition of open access policy: "Open Access is the condition where the copyright holder of a scholarly work grants usage rights to others using an open license (Creative Commons or equivalent) allowing for immediate free access to the work and permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose". 

In support of Open Science practices, manuscripts must cite and reference all data, program codes and other materials that have been used or generated in the research. Papers using underlying data (such as empirical research) should provide its tables and files (e.g. Excel tables, fonts, etc.) for joint publications (supplementary document) or deposit in open data repositories.

The RBDPP does not charge Article Processing Charges fees (APC). The approximate time for an editorial decision is 2-4 months in the case of articles that are rejected in preliminary control and approximately 4-6 months in the case of articles sent for peer review. This average time is calculated based on the dates of submission and final decision regarding publication. Exceptionally, times may be longer when there is a need to manage the editorial flow for comparative analysis of the quality, originality and potential impact of articles. In the case of approved articles, to guarantee the shortest possible time between approval and publication, RBDPP will adopt the rolling publication format.

As of 2024, maintaining the four-monthly periodicity for closing the numbers, the RBDPP will adopt rolling publication, in order to release the articles as they are approved. Future issues will be opened simultaneously, at the discretion of the editorial team, and published articles will be allocated by editorial decision, prioritizing the approval date and other RBDPP publication criteria.

The RBDPP takes measures to ensure the preservation of its publications and archives. Monthly backup is performed on Google Drive online server and automatic preservation in the LOCKSS system (PKP-PLN) and Cariniana. Furthermore, published papers are stored in repositories such as Dialnet, HeinOnline and IBCCRIM Library.

 

Preprint and postprint deposit policies RBDPP

Under the terms recommended by Scielo and COPE, in addition of those adopted in several scientific areas, the Brazilian Journal of Criminal Procedure authorizes and encourages the deposit of manuscripts on certified preprint and postprint servers, in order to increase publicity, transparency, and celerity in the dissemination of scientific research results.

• Preprint is the version of the article before being subjected to formal peer review in a scientific journal, a draft of the manuscript before being evaluated by another researcher.
• Postprint is the version of the article after being subjected to formal peer review in a scientific journal, with improvements arising from the rounds of corrections, but before its official publication in the journal.

The adoption of preprint servers has significant impacts on the editorial process in a broad way: 

1. Articles made available on certified preprint servers are now accepted as original contributions, although not unpublished in strict terms. Thus, in such cases there is a change in the editorial logic, so that publication in a scientific journal becomes a certificate of "reliability and quality" to the article, and not a means for its initial and primary dissemination.
2. When posting the article on the preprint server, it becomes public before peer review and, therefore, it remains impossible to ensure the anonymity of the author to the reviewer. In other words, in these cases, the double-blind peer review system is changed to single-blind peer review, where evaluators will be able to discover the identity of the author, but the author will not know who the evaluators are. The Journal will not directly inform the author's identity, but it might be found in simple searches on the internet.

The RBDPP editorial staff takes a stance that the benefits of the preprint and postprint servers are preponderant:

1. On the one hand, research results are allowed to be disseminated quickly, especially on urgent issues (cases on trial in the Courts, new legislative changes, etc.), what could distance authors who preferred to publish their research on non-certified sites rather than scientific journals.
2. In addition, it allows a wide debate prior to publication, which can improve the articles. On the whole, such a change does not affect the quality and seriousness of peer control and the editorial process in general, but it brings important benefits and advances to the scientific field.
3. The expansion of publicity and research dissemination in a faster way enhances the interaction between researchers and research groups on related and similar themes, which contributes to the scientific development of the area.

Therefore, the Brazilian Journal of Criminal Procedure authorizes the deposit of manuscripts as preprint and postprint, as long as in one of the following certified servers:

• https://preprints.scielo.org/ (recommended option)
• https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ 
• https://www.ssrn.com/

The decision on whether or not to deposit the article as a preprint or postprint is entirely up to the author(s), so it is an authorized option, but not imposed by the Journal. For the interested author(s), we do suggest attention regarding:

• The deposit of the preprint does not guarantee approval and publication of the article in the Brazilian Journal of Criminal Procedure, so that in the case of rejection, the existing options of journals that accept such policy must be considered, as there may be intolerance to the “unpublished” requirement under the terms required by most scientific journals of Law currently.
• Do check the preprint and postprint server rules and policies chosen between the three options accepted by the Brazilian Journal of Criminal Procedure and indicated above, especially concerning the license and copyright terms.
• The Brazilian Journal of Criminal Procedure is not responsible for any difficulties or complications related to the author(s) option to deposit the article in a preprint or postprint server.

When submitting to Brazilian Journal of Criminal Procedure, the author must inform (in the field “comments to the editor” or by email) the deposit of the article as preprint. Also, the deposit of the postprint version must be communicated. Such data will be published at the end of the approved articles.

 

Inclusion and diversity

- RBDPP adopts a policy of inclusion and diversity, in order to encourage the use of inclusive language and diversity of bibliographic references: https://revista.ibraspp.com.br/RBDPP/inclusao

- The editorial team of the RBDPP, in addition to the authors who publish in the journal, must always observe the guidelines on Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER). The SAGER guidelines comprise a set of guidelines that guide the reporting of information about sex and gender in study design, data analysis, and results and interpretation of findings.

- In addition, the RBDPP observes the gender equity policy in the formation of its editorial board and selection of reviewers.

 

Ethics committee