brycewang-stanford Criminology Workflow Router (crim-workflow)
The orchestrator for a Criminology submission. Figure out the stage and the article type, then send the user to the matching skill. Criminology is the interdisciplinary flagship of the American Society of Criminology — the router's first job is to make sure the paper advances a theoretical or measurement contribution about crime, not just a finding about a crime dataset.
When to trigger
- Starting a new Criminology paper and unsure where to begin
- Mid-project and unsure which skill applies next
- Deciding between a full Article and a Research Note
- Returning with a decision letter (route to
crim-rebuttal)
First question: which article type?
| Situation | Type | Route to |
|---|---|---|
| Full original study advancing theory/measurement | Article | normal pipeline below |
| One focused, self-contained contribution | Research Note | normal pipeline, tighter scope |
| Re-examining / reproducing a published finding | replication-style study | crim-research-design + crim-data-and-transparency |
| Prospective design, data not yet collected | preregister first | crim-data-and-transparency (preregistration) early |
If your design is prospective, lock the pre-analysis plan before you see outcomes — that is what protects against the "fishing" critique expert reviewers will raise.
Routing map (stage → skill)
Idea / fit? → crim-topic-selection
Where does it sit in the field? → crim-literature-positioning
What's the theory / mechanism? → crim-theory-building
Is the design defensible? → crim-research-design
Are the analyses sound? → crim-data-analysis
Are the exhibits clear? → crim-tables-figures
Does it read for criminology? → crim-writing-style
Data + transparency ready? → crim-data-and-transparency
How will it be judged? → crim-review-process
Ready to submit? → crim-submission
Got an R&R / decision? → crim-rebuttal
Default order
topic-selection → literature-positioning → theory-building → research-design → data-analysis → tables-figures → writing-style → data-and-transparency → review-process → submission → rebuttal
Iterate: most criminology papers loop theory ↔ design ↔ analysis several times (e.g., refitting a trajectory model or recidivism survival) before writing-style.
Anti-patterns
- Treating Criminology as a place for a bare crime-data correlation with no theoretical payoff
- Forcing a quantitative template onto qualitative or ethnographic work (the journal is interdisciplinary)
- Choosing the Research Note type for a paper that needs a full Article's evidentiary load
- Leaving the data/transparency package until acceptance instead of building it as you go
Symptom-to-skill triage (route by the complaint you heard)
Reviewers, advisers, and co-authors describe problems in their own words; the router maps each phrase to the skill that fixes it. These are the recurring flags for the ASC flagship.
| What was said | Underlying gap | Route to |
|---|---|---|
| "atheoretical / just a finding" | mechanism not built | crim-theory-building |
| "selection / not causal" | identification weak | crim-research-design |
| "official records, not offending" | measurement validity | crim-data-analysis |
| "missed key work / wrong debate" | positioning | crim-literature-positioning |
| "belongs at CPP" | scope/fit | crim-topic-selection |
| "can't reproduce this" | transparency | crim-data-and-transparency |
A Research Note routes through the same chain with a tighter scope; the pack does not encode a numeric cap, so check it against the journal's current submission guidelines before committing to the type.
Router pass for Criminology
Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the crime/justice process, measurement validity, research design, and policy consequence; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: criminology reviewers who expect theory-linked crime, justice, or harm mechanisms plus transparent measurement.
- Do the pass: Run the pack as a sequence: fit gate, evidence gate, writing gate, source-map gate, and final output contract; stop when a gate lacks evidence.
- Return a ledger: give
claim / evidence / risk / manuscript locationrows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue. - Sibling guard: compare against Justice Quarterly for applied justice, Journal of Quantitative Criminology for methods focus, Social Problems for broader sociological framing; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
- Stop condition: do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's
resources/official-source-map.mdhas been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.
Output format
【Stage】idea / positioning / theory / design / analysis / exhibits / writing / transparency / review / submit / rebut
【Type】Article / Research Note / replication-style
【Route to】crim-<skill>
【Why】one line
【Then】the next skill after that
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— crime data + criminology software by method../../resources/official-source-map.md— official Criminology / ASC / Wiley URLs behind every fact in this pack