Page 70 - NCJA Journal_volume1_issue1-final

abstract of the paper, but when it dealt with more than one area (e.g., a theoretical explanation of

crime), the assignment was made to the category where the paper best fit in the judgment of the

author. In the case of theoretical explanations of crimes, those were placed in the criminological

theory category rather than the crime paper, even though they also concern crime. As another

example, papers concerning student perceptions of different aspects of criminal justice were

placed in those categories of police, courts, or corrections rather than the criminal justice

education category because the main topic of those papers dealt with student perceptions of

branches of criminal justice rather than education per se. A complete list of paper topics each

year is provided in Appendix A to give the reader a better idea of which types of papers were

included in each category.

Findings

Figure 1 illustrates that from 2011 to 2018, the relative size of the program has stayed

remarkably similar. The total number of panels from 2011 to 2018 was 99, or approximately 12

panels per year. The total number of papers scheduled from 2011 to 2017 to be presented was

249 papers or about 31 papers per year.

Figure 2 shows the general paper topics scheduled to be presented from 2011 to 2018.

The number of papers varied significantly by topic.

Figures 3 through 10 make the number of papers within each topic and the general trends

within each category easier to see. Tied for the most papers were papers in the “other” category

(see Figure 3), which includes everything that could not easily be categorized into the more

specific categories. There was an average of 6.6 papers per year in the “other” category (21% of

the total during the years of study).

63