Yesterday, the American Society of Criminology posted two statements regarding the Chronicle of Higher Education article of September 24. The first is by the ASC executive committee, stating support for how the editorial team is handling the matter, and ensuring that the process follows the COPE framework. This is very good. Even though Criminology is not a member of COPE, their guidelines are very sensible, and similar to Wiley’s guidelines. COPE has a flow chart that describe the process.
The second statement is from the co-editors of Criminology. This statement explains how the journal handles cases where there is raised concerns about an article. The main approach is a comment-and-reply model, where critics submit their comment to the journal and the original author is offered to reply. They also state that this is not appropriate in all instances, and additional steps may be necessary, including retractions if the evidence is strong. This is all fine, and I agree.
The comment from the co-authors also details the time line from when they got an anonymous email on the May 29, 2019 and up to today. The also emphasize that they did issue a statement July 26 notifying that investigations were being done.
This is all good. I expect nothing less.
However, the statements are not really a comment directly on the article in the Chronicle, although on the same topic. I guess their main message is just to ensure that they are pursuing the case, as is clear from the following statement:
“Social media attention to Dr. Pickett’s online statement led to what we perceive as a rush to judgment against the authors and the journal, including the mischaracterization that we are not taking the issue seriously and are not committed to resolving it. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have taken several steps aimed at obtaining a fair and transparent resolution.”
From my point of view, the editorial statement July 26 was fine, and I trusted the journal to do an appropriate investigation as stated. I did think it now took a bit long time, but I have no problem accepting that there might be good reasons for that.
I was alarmed and disappointed only when I read the article in The Chronicle. There were stories, speculations and rumors that are not the responsibility of the journal, whether true or false. Criminology is not to blame for any of that. However, the chief editor, David McDowall, was quoted in the article saying things that gave the impression that Criminology did not carry out an appropriate investigation. I believe it was precisely his statements that made people doubt whether Criminology took the issue seriously. I think there are three main points:
First, the chief editor was quoted questioning Pickett’s personal motives. It seemed like McDowall actively defended Stewart, and tried to make Pickett look bad. Given that the journal’s investigation is not ready, it is highly inappropriate for the chief editor to make such statements.
Second, the chief editor was quoted on claiming that the journal has published “complete gibberish” before, referring to one specific instance. He even seems to be fine with that as it appeared to be an argument against retracting the article in question. Let’s just hope he was misquoted.
Third, the chief editor was portrayed as “no fan of the move toward more scrutiny in the social sciences, which he sees as overly aggressive”. That was not a direct quote, but there is a direct quote where he refers to such scrutiny having a “blood-sport aspect to it” (which obviously does not sound positive). Scrutiny should be at the heart of social science, and so should reproducibility and accountability. While I do expect journals to handle such instances in a professional manner (no blood-sport), it is hard to accept that the chief editor is not in favor of such scrutiny.
My point here is that the statement from the co-editors do not clarify these three conserns following from the quotes in the Chronicle. It would be good to know if the chief editor was misquoted or cited out of context. Or maybe he was just sloppy and did not really mean those things, or even regretted that it came out that way. Whatever. Does he and the journal stand by these things or not? I would have hoped that the statement from the co-editors would 1) apologize for prematurely questioning Pickett’s motives in public and hopefully also state that it was not the intention at all, 2) ensure that Criminology do not accept publishing “complete gibberish”, but will now look into also the other article mentioned by the chief editor to check if that was actually the case, and 3) ensure that Criminology supports the move to increased scrutiny in the social sciences.
In any case, the co-editors have been very clear that they are taking the issue seriously, and the ASC executive committee ensures the process will follow the COPE guidelines. I trust that is happening.
Clearly, there are ways of improving research integrity and accountability without any aspects of blood-sport. Some improvements might even be easy. I might come back to that in a later post.
UPDATE: The chief editor just sent an email to all ASC members where he clarifies that some of the words he used were regrettable and do not reflect what he really means neither about editorial policy nor about persons involved. That is good! It goes a long way answering my concerns in this blog post.
