LibGuides: Criminal Justice: Key Resources

About This Guide

Welcome!

This guide is intended to serve as a starting point for your criminal justice research needs at UBalt! Here, you will find relevant resources as well as some tips for how to find sources in UB Library's databases and catalog! If you need help with the research process, contact a UB librarian.

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Finding articles

Finding books

Finding credible criminal justice websites

Note: If you are off-campus, you will be prompted to log in with your UBalt username and password. If you forgot your login information, go to UBalt's MyPassword website to reset your password.

If there are any sources or information that you think should be included in this guide, please contact a UB Librarian.

Databases

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.
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.
Nexis Uni
This database has replaced LexisNexis Academic, with the same access to: Magazine, newspaper, and journal articles and information on various people, businesses, and countries. It also contains federal and state codes and case law. It features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
How to search this database: Visit the Nexis Uni 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.
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 and Citations

Publishing Your Research
by Michael Shochet Last Updated Jun 11, 2021 7 views this year
Writing&Citing
by Mike Kiel Last Updated Oct 17, 2023 96 views this year

UB Library's Research Tutorials
If you need a refresher on how to find sources and verify that the information in the sources is reliable, then be sure to check out the tutorials! You can also get help from a librarian if you need individual research support!

Scholarly Journals

Below is a selection of some of the most influential scholarly journals related to criminal justice. You can find additional journals by going to the A-Z Journal List and using the search terms such as Criminal Justice, Criminology, Penology, and Juvenile Justice.

Statistical Information

PolicyMap
What you’ll find here: a U.S. national data and mapping tool allowing users to create custom demographic maps, tables, and reports. Available data includes demographics, home sale statistics, health data, mortgage trends, school performance scores, labor data such as unemployment, and crime statistics, such as city crime rates. Use PolicyMap to create compelling maps of up to five layers, export trend charts with key benchmarks, download data for use in other tools, generate on-the-fly reports, and upload your own data to view it with ours.
How to search this database: Visit the PolicyMap Tutorial Page.
Check out this Video and Guide QuickStart Video and Guide

FBI Crime Statistics
This page lists links to the Uniform Crime Reports, which include violent crime, property crime, hate crime, law enforcement officers killed and assaulted, NIBRS, bank crime, terrorism and more.

ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the U.S.
What you’ll find here: Provides a comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States. You can browse or search for data tables, and download them as a pdf or XLS spreadsheet.
How to search this database: Visit their guide page.

American Fact Finder (United States Census)
From American Fact Finder: "American FactFinder provides access to data about the United States, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas. The data in American FactFinder come from several censuses and surveys. "

Information from American Fact Finder comes from sources such as:
The American Community Survey, American Housing Survey, Annual Economic Surveys, Decennial Census, Economic Census, and more!
Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance
Browse 8 vital signs to get information on Baltimore City neighborhoods.
Governor's Office of Crime Control & Prevention (Maryland)
Among other resources, this website contains information about violent and property crime in Maryland from 1975 - present. The information is taken form the Maryland Open Data Portal.
Maryland Open Data Portal
Contains data gathered from various Maryland state agencies related to real estate, employment, local/state economy, and other important topics.

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