Whenever a breach of the rules has occurred, or appears to have occurred, or when published material requires substantive correction, the editorial board of the scientific journal Archive of Criminology and Forensic Sciences considers the matter in accordance with the relevant COPE recommendations.
Retraction is the formal withdrawal or cancellation, including at the author's initiative, of an already published scholarly article. The decision is taken by the journal's editorial board where violations of publication ethics and/or other substantial shortcomings are identified, including errors, plagiarism, improper borrowing of text, ideas, data, or research results, failure to cite original data sources properly, duplicate publication of the same article in another outlet without valid justification, inclusion of authors who made no substantial scholarly contribution, exclusion of authors who did make such a contribution, misconduct in peer review, or a conflict of interest that may have affected or did affect the research findings, thereby making the results unreliable for scholarly use.
Authors are obliged to notify the editorial board immediately and cooperate in removing or correcting an error if they discover a substantial mistake or inaccuracy in work that has already been published. If the editorial board learns from a third party that a published work contains serious errors, the author must promptly provide evidence supporting the correctness of the original data or exercise the right to retract and correct the errors in the prescribed manner.
In line with COPE recommendations, retraction serves as a mechanism for correcting the scholarly record and warning readers that a published work is so flawed or contains such unreliable data that its conclusions cannot be trusted.
An article may also be retracted to correct major errors affecting the conclusions where such errors have been reported by the authors themselves. After retraction, the article remains in the journal archive with a clear indication of its retracted status.
This policy establishes the procedure for retracting articles published in the scientific journal Archive of Criminology and Forensic Sciences. The purpose of retraction is to correct published information and safeguard the integrity of scholarly publishing.
Initiators and grounds for retraction
Retraction may be initiated by the authors, the journal's editorial board, readers, and other interested parties.
The editorial board recognizes the following as grounds for retracting a scholarly article: established plagiarism or unlawful borrowing of materials; substantial errors in the research that render its results unreliable; duplicate publication of the same material; falsification or manipulation of data; failure to disclose a conflict of interest that affects the interpretation of the results; violations of ethical standards and academic integrity during the conduct of the research; and unauthorized use, without proper citation or justification, of artificial intelligence technologies in writing the article or generating charts, tables, or other graphic material.
Procedure for initiating retraction
The retraction procedure includes the following elements: the person initiating retraction submits a written statement to the Chair of the editorial board, explaining the reasons for withdrawing the article; the statement must be accompanied by evidence demonstrating the need for retraction; the Chair reviews the request within five working days in order to decide whether retraction proceedings are warranted and appoints a committee of three independent experts drawn from the editorial board. The committee conducts a comprehensive assessment of the submitted materials and available evidence, while the authors of the article are given an opportunity to explain the identified shortcomings during the committee's work. The review period must not exceed 14 calendar days.
Committee decision
The committee may adopt one of the following decisions: reject the request for retraction, invite the authors to publish a correction, or recommend full retraction of the scholarly article. The decision is taken by majority vote of the committee members.
Consequences and notice format
If the committee decides in favor of retraction, the article is marked as retracted in all versions of the journal, a retraction notice stating the reasons is published, and the notice must include a link to the original article.
A retraction notice must contain a clear heading, “Retraction Notice,” the bibliographic details of the original article, a detailed explanation of the reasons for retraction, and the date on which the committee's decision takes effect.
Archiving
A retracted scholarly article remains in the journal archive with the corresponding notice. The editorial board sends information about the retraction to the authors, indexing databases, and the relevant scholarly community.
Information on the retraction of the article is published in the next issue of the scientific journal Archive of Criminology and Forensic Sciences.
Authors' rights
Authors are entitled to receive a detailed explanation of the committee's retraction decision within the prescribed period, to appeal that decision, with the appeal reviewed by the editorial board within seven days, and to publish a comment on the retraction decision.