LibGuides: Criminal Justice: CRJU 304 -- Criminal Justice Professional Studies

Databases

Databases used in Assignment #1

Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text
What you’ll find here: Magazine and journal articles, books, conference material, and reviews focused on criminology and related disciplines. These include law enforcement, courts, victims, and juvenile delinquency.
How to search this database: Look at the EBSCOhost help page.
Criminal Justice Database
What you’ll find here: Magazine, trade publication, and journal articles from criminal justice journals worldwide. It also features reports and books.
How to search this database: Look at the ProQuest help page.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Abstracts Database
What you’ll find here: Summaries of journal articles and other resources dealing with criminal justice, juvenile justice, and substance abuse. Many of these are produced by various bureaus and offices of the U.S. Department of Justice, so government information is a strength of this database.
How to search this database: Take the database’s online tutorial.

National Institute of Justice

Other useful databases

Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection
What you’ll find here: Articles published in the SAGE company’s 24 scholarly, educational, and professional journals on that focus on different aspects of criminal justice.
How to search this database: Visit SAGE’s help page.
Ebsco Discovery Service (EDS)
What you’ll find here: EDS is our largest and most comprehensive database, with information from a large variety of sources and content in all disciplines. It covers materials contained in most of our other article databases, as well as books in the library catalog. If you don;t know where to start, this is the best choice.
How to search this database: Look at the EBSCOhost help page.
ERIC
What you’ll find here: Articles and other documents from journals and other publications focused on education. It is one of the most popular and useful resources for material on education at all levels.
How to search this database: Look at the EBSCOhost help page.
PsycINFO
What you’ll find here: Books, book chapters, dissertations, and journal articles focusing on behavioral and mental health. This database adds to PsycARTICLES with other media and journal articles outside the American Psychological Association's publishing circle.
How to search this database: Look at the EBSCOhost help page.
SocINDEX with Full Text
What you’ll find here: Journal articles, books, and conference papers focusing on sociology and sociological issues. These include criminology, religion, politics, family studies, anthropology, and more.
How to search this database: Look at the EBSCOhost help page.

Research Process Resources

Government Reports

What are they?
Government agencies are often required to produce reports on a wide variety of topics. In criminal justice these might be the evaluation of a program or department, and overview of an area of research, or a variety of other topics.

How do I find them?
The best way to find these kinds of sources is to go straight to the government agencies themselves or use a service like NCJRS. Try using the word "report" when you search for a title if you have trouble, it can be surprisingly effective.

How do I know I've found one?
This is what generally trips students up. What does a "government report" look like? Unfortunately there is no perfect clear cut answer, but generally there are some common characteristics:

They tend to be lengthy, often very lengthy. If it's 3 pages this probably isn't what you are looking for, think more like 20.
They are often reporting on something to another agency or regulatory body. For instance a report could be to congress, or evaluating a program for an inspector of some kind.
They are not generally published in a scholarly journal.

Criminal Justice

Databases

Research Process Resources

Government Reports

Websites