Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice

Dear Reader:

SAGE founder Sara Miller McCune pioneered publishing programs dedicated to social justice and equality. Over the decades, we have supported research and writing that challenges complacency, critiques injustices, and seeks to provide insights into how to create a more just and equitable world. We are proud of this legacy, but we can—and need—to do more.

Our Mission Statement

Believing passionately in the power of education to transform the criminal justice system, sage criminology & criminal justice offers compelling content that explores questions of justice, equality, and ethics. This extensive list of material composed by renowned academics and practitioners allows us to serve as a committed partner in bringing innovative approaches to the classroom. Our focus on critical thinking, application and social justice across the curriculum helps instructors prepare the next generation of criminal justice professionals to create meaningful, real-world change. 

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice

SAGE strongly condemns racism, police brutality, and injustice in any form and acknowledges the structural racism in American social institutions, including the criminal justice system, as well as housing, education, healthcare, and others.  

As outlined in our mission statement, we firmly believe that education can help transform the criminal justice system and we are deeply committed to upholding principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice in our content. At SAGE, our goal is to ensure that we are doing our part to get instructors and students thinking critically and creatively about issues in the criminal justice system, so they have the skills they need to address bias, make ethical decisions, and use evidence-based practices to affect change in a system distorted by centuries of structural racism. 

Recognizing the need to address structural racism and systemic inequality at every opportunity, this charter codifies our commitment to publishing criminal justice content that has a strong focus on ethics, reform, social justice, inclusivity, and diversity.

What SAGE and Our Authors are Doing to Achieve this:

• Continuing to publish content that advocates for criminal justice reform and elevates voices of marginalized groups
• Making SAGE a more attractive publishing house for authors of color and authors from other marginalized groups 
• Revising and creating content to meet more diverse and inclusive standards, to connect with current events, critical research, and issues related to social justice to foster learning that leads to dismantling structural racism within the criminal justice system
• Providing instructors with the tools they need to have what can be difficult and challenging classroom conversations about race and criminal justice 
• Ensuring our content is accessible to all learners
• Recruiting talent and cultivating a work environment that advances greater inclusion
• Maintaining an equitable approach in our content; accurately and fairly presenting evidence-based practices and research in a way that facilitates critical thinking
• Actively working to use inclusive, respectful, and human-centric language that adheres to the SAGE guidelines for bias-free language 

We need you, the reader, the student, the instructor, to help hold us accountable for all that we have mentioned here. We truly value your feedback. If there are things you read in this newsletter that are inaccurate, offensive, or that need to be clarified, please do not hesitate to connect with us to share your concerns. Please contact me directly with any questions or feedback you may have. 

Sincerely,