Academic disciplines have been characterized as static institutions that do not change or conform to outside forces. Abbott (1999) and Silbey (2000) have discussed this issue in relation to how the history of refereed journals in the social sciences can provide information on department, institution, and disciplinary changes that often wear a false guise of continuity. This paper analyzes the content of Criminal Justice Policy Review by replicating the methodology Silbey (2000) used to study the content of Law & Society Review in terms of editorship, authorship, article contents, method and mode of research, and article topics. The results indicate that, although changes in the content of Criminal Justice Policy Review over time may be small, they exist and most correspond with changes in the department, institution, and discipline. Changes in journal content also appear to have been influenced by changes in editorial philosophy and increasing interest in raising the stature of the journal within the discipline
