''The American Criminal Law Review'' is a student-edited

scholarly journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...

published at

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

. The ACLR is a journal of

American criminal law Responsibility for criminal law and criminal justice in the United States is shared between the states and the federal government. Parties to a crime The parties or participants in a crime include the principal and accessory. A principal is a ...

and

white-collar crime The term "white-collar crime" refers to financially motivated, nonviolent or non-directly violent crime committed by individuals, businesses and government professionals. It was first defined by the sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a ...

Overview

''ACLR'' adopts a mix of symposia, articles, and notes. The journal is the most cited criminal law journal by courts, with fifty-seven case cites from 2005-2012 (the 38th most of any American law review), and the second most cited criminal law journal by other law reviews, with 1,217 cites from 2005-2012.

History

Early years

The ''American Criminal Law Review'' was first published in 1962 as ''Criminal Law Quarterly'' by the

USC Gould School of Law The USC Gould School of Law, located in Los Angeles, California, is the law school of the University of Southern California. The oldest law school in the Southwestern United States, USC Law traces its beginnings to 1896 and became affiliated with ...

in conjunction with the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

. The ABA moved the publication to the

University of Kansas School of Law The University of Kansas School of Law is the law school of the University of Kansas, a public research university in Lawrence, Kansas. The University of Kansas Law School was founded in 1893, replacing the earlier Department of Law, which had exi ...

the following year and changed its title to the ''American Criminal Law Quarterly'' ("ACLQ"). As an ABA publication, the ACLQ concentrated on a practitioner's approach to the criminal law.

Move to Georgetown Law

In 1971, Professor

Samuel Dash Samuel Dash (February 27, 1925 – May 29, 2004) was an American lawyer. He was chief counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee during the Watergate scandal. Dash became famous for his televised interrogations during the hearings held by the ...

was elected chairman of the ABA's Criminal Law Section and moved from the

. Professor Dash brought the journal with him and changed its name to the ''American Criminal Law Review''. Now edited by students, each issue originally dealt with a single topic. Volume 10, Number 1—the first issue published at Georgetown and under the ''American Criminal Law Review'' name—presented a symposium on

military law Military justice (also military law) is the legal system (bodies of law and procedure) that governs the conduct of the active-duty personnel of the armed forces of a country. In some nation-states, civil law and military law are distinct bodie ...

, and began with an essay by the

Chief of Staff of the United States Army The chief of staff of the Army (CSA) is a statutory position in the United States Army held by a general officer. As the highest-ranking officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Army, the chief is the principal military advisor and a ...

at the time, Gen.

William Westmoreland William Childs Westmoreland (March 26, 1914 – July 18, 2005) was a United States Army general, most notably commander of United States forces during the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968. He served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from ...

. That format lasted for only three academic years.

Annual Survey of White Collar Crime

Overview

In the fall of 1980, the First Survey of White Collar Crime appeared in Volume 18, Number 2. It has evolved into the ACLR's best-known publication. One hornbook, on

White Collar Crime The term "white-collar crime" refers to financially motivated, nonviolent or non-directly violent crime committed by individuals, businesses and government professionals. It was first defined by the sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a ...

by J. Kelly Strader, referred his readers to the Annual Survey, writing: "Readers should note that this area of the law is changing rapidly. For a more extensive discussion of any particular subject, the reader may wish to refer to…The Annual Survey of White Collar Crime…."

Topics covered

The Annual Survey has covered antitrust violations,

computer crime A cybercrime is a crime that involves a computer or a computer network.Moore, R. (2005) "Cyber crime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing. The computer may have been used in committing th ...

corporate crime In criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation (i.e., a business entity having a separate legal personality from the natural persons that manage its activities), or by individuals acting on behalf of a corpor ...

, election law violations, employment-related crimes,

environmental crime Environmental crime is an illegal act which directly harms the environment. These illegal activities involve the environment, wildlife, biodiversity and natural resources. International bodies such as, G8, Interpol, European Union, United Nation ...

, false statements and false claims, federal criminal conspiracy, financial institutions fraud, the

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) (, ''et seq.'') is a United States federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests. The FCPA is applicable world ...

health care fraud Health care fraud includes "snake oil" marketing, health insurance fraud, drug fraud, and medical fraud. Health insurance fraud occurs when a company or an individual defrauds an insurer or government health care program, such as Medicare (United S ...

, intellectual property crimes,

mail and wire fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activit ...

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

obstruction of justice Obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, is an act that involves unduly influencing, impeding, or otherwise interfering with the justice system, especially the legal and procedural tasks of prosecutors, investigators, or other gov ...

perjury Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...

, public corruption, the

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. RICO was en ...

securities fraud Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in los ...

, and tax violations.

Notable contributors

ACLR contributors have included some of the most prominent figures in American government, academia, and legal practice, including

Justice William Brennan William Joseph "Bill" Brennan Jr. (April 25, 1906 – July 24, 1997) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1956 to 1990. He was the seventh-longest serving justice ...

, Sen.

Ted Kennedy Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...

, Prof.

Akhil Amar Akhil Reed Amar (born September 6, 1958) is an American legal scholar known for his expertise in constitutional law and criminal procedure. He holds the position of Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, and is an adj ...

Cyrus R. Vance Jr. Cyrus Roberts Vance Jr. (born June 14, 1954) is an American attorney and politician who served as the District Attorney of New York County, New York, also known as the Manhattan District Attorney. He was previously a principal partner at the l ...

Larry D. Thompson,

Julie O'Sullivan Julie R. O'Sullivan (born 1959) has been a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center since joining the faculty in November 1994 from her position in the Office of Independent Counsel (Little Rock, Arkansas), where she worked on the "Whitew ...

and then-Judge

Stephen Breyer Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is a retired American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and repl ...

.http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CHRG-BREYER/pdf/GPO-CHRG-BREYER-3-1-3-1-1.pdf

Membership

The ''American Criminal Law Review'' is composed of about one hundred and three second- and third-year law students. The third-year students serve in editorial positions and the second-year students work as staff. Students are offered positions on ACLR based on their first-year grades and performance in a writing and citation competition. First-year students participate in the competition after completing their final exams in the spring semester. The competition is administered by the Georgetown Law Office of Journal Administration.

References

{{Georgetown University American law journals Georgetown University academic journals Criminal law journals Law journals edited by students Criminology Georgetown University Law Center Quarterly journals Publications established in 1962