User Guides Subject Guides > Social Sciences Criminal Justice

This guide is an introduction to sources of information on Criminal Justice in the United States that are available at URI. It describes types of materials and provides selected items in each category.

To find book information search the HELIN Catalog under such subjects as: Crime, Criminals, Criminology, Feminist Criminology, some further divided to specific crimes (Commercial crime; Computer hackers, Murderers, Sex offenders, terrorists, violent offenders, etc.), ethnicity of the criminals (Afro-American Criminals; Criminals-Asian; Jewish criminals, etc.), age & gender (Aged offenders; Female offenders, Juvenile delinquents, etc.) and Church work with criminals; Fugitives from justice; Mentally handicapped offenders; Occasional Criminals; Recidivists; Social work with criminals. The Library of Congress Subject Headings will help identify appropriate terms.

There are also related Subject Guides accessible on the Library’s home pages under User Guides. Examples are: How to Find a Federal Law; Industry Information; Family Violence.

Getting Started | Encyclopedias and Dictionaries | Handbooks and Manuals | Indexes and Abstracts to Periodicals | Statistics | Bibliographies |
Web Sources

Getting Started

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Guides to the literature introduce a subject field and indicate the available resources and the way to use them.

URI Ref  HV7419.5 .C75 1998

Criminal Justice Information: How to Find It, How to Use it. 1998.

URI Ref  KF240 .C538 1989

Cohen, Morris L. et al. How to Find the Law. 9th ed. 1989.

Standard source on primary and secondary sources of American law.

URI Ref  Z5703.4 .C73 N45 1997

Nelson, Bonnie R. Criminal Justice Research in Libraries and on the Internet. 1997.

Includes chapters on legal research, research in forensic science, historical research, comparative research across countries.

Encyclopedias provide an overview of knowledge on important subjects. General unabridged dictionaries have good coverage of terms in criminal justice, but are not so complete as dictionaries limited to a particular subject.

URI Ref  KF154 .A42

American Jurisprudence. 2d. 1962- (Annual, updated by replacement volumes and pocket parts.)

URI Ref  KF156 .B53 1999

Black, Henry Campbell. Black's Law Dictionary: Definitions of the Terms and Phrases of American and English Jurisprudence, Ancient and Modern. 7th ed. 1999.

Standard legal authority. Citations to court decisions included when a term has been affected by legislation, court rules, or court decisions.

URI Ref HV6431 .C65 2002

Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann. Encyclopedia of Terrorism. 2002.

“...brief descriptions and analyses of what contributors have found to be among the most serious and influential terrorist personalities and organizations and the most significant motivations and victims of terrorism.” Appendices: Statistical charts, chronology 1946-2000, chronology of reaction to September 11, 2001, Selected Bibliography.  legal authority.

URI Ref HV6789 .C6884 1997

Crime and the Justice System in America: an Encyclopedia.1997.

Strives to include significant terminology, precedent-setting cases, key historical and contemporary figures, notable policy initiatives, and significant findings, studies, agencies and programs. Each entry includes Recommended Readings.

URI Ref HV6025 .D43 1988

De Sola, Ralph. The Crime Dictionary. 1988.

All aspects of crime. Includes foreign terms, abbreviations and acronyms.

URI Ref HV6017 .E52 2002

Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice. 2d. ed. 4 vols. 2002.

Alphabetic by subject. Articles include bibliographies that refer to recent, English-language materials. They also include full legal citations to document the text and guide the reader to court decisions, statutes, etc. that reflect thinking and practice in the criminal law. Major topics are presented as entries, sometimes with separate topics from a variety of perspectives grouped under the major entry. Cross-references to related articles are added. Exhaustive subject index.

URI Ref HV6017 .E524 2002

Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment. 4 vols. 2002.

Alphabetic by subject with extensive cross-references. Chronology at end of each volume. Appendixes: Careers in criminal justice; Web resources; Professional & Scholarly associations; Selected bibliography.

URI Ref HV6017 .E53 2001

Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior. 4 vols. 2001.

Vol. I = Historical, conceptual and theoretical issues; II = Crime and juvenile delinquency; III = Sexual deviance; IV = Self-destructive behavior and disvalued identity. Each volume has two tables of contents, one alphabetic by entry topic and one in form of a subject guide.

URI Ref HV9471 .E425 1996

Encyclopedia of American Prisons. 1996.

Detailed articles by academics. Articles contain bibliographies.

URI Ref QH332 .E52 1995

Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Rev. ed. 5 vols. 1995.

Topics of interest in criminal justices include prostitution, abuse, death penalties. Articles have extensive bibliographies.

URI Ref HV5804 .E53 2001

Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol & Addictive Behavior. 2d ed. 4 vols. 2001.

Vol. 4 includes appendices listing organizations, a timeline showing federal involvement in drug control efforts, U.S. Schedules of Controlled Substances.

URI Ref HV7901 .F39 1988

Fay, John J. The Police Dictionary and Encyclopedia. 1988.

Legal terms, forensic terms, police slang.

URI Ref HM136 .L46 1994

Levinson, David. Aggression and Conflict: A Cross-Cultural Encyclopedia. 1994.

Provides alternate ways of viewing rape, homicide, family violence, crime in general. Most articles have cross references and short bibliographies.

URI Ref HV9304 .W54 1996

Williams, Virgil L., Dictionary of American Penology. Rev. and expanded.1996.

Particularly useful are articles on prison systems of each state.

Handbooks are similar to encyclopedias but cover a narrower subject area and are usually comprised of a collection of essays written by experts. Manuals provide instructions in how to perform a task.

URI Ref HV6253 .C75 1992

Crime Classification Manual. 1992.

Purpose: to standardize terminology in the field, facilitate communication within the field, and between criminal justice and mental health, educate the system and the public at large to types of crime being committed, develop a database for investigative research. Part One contains the three major categories classified to date: homicide, arson, rape and sexual assault; Part Two reviews crime scene analysis.

URI Ref HV6046 .F363 1993

Feminine Criminality: the State of the Art.  1993.

Essays by criminologists, sociologists and psychologists. Arranged in three major sections: Overview and General Problems and Trends; new Developments in Female Criminal Behavior; Criminal Justice Systems' Response to Female Offenders.

URI Ref HV6789 .H25 1998

The Handbook of Crime and Punishment.1998.

Attempts to distill current knowledge on most important subjects relating to crime and punishment in modern America: Context, Topical crime problems, Causes of Crime, Crime reduction, Pre-conviction processes and institutions, Punishment. Includes bibliographical references and index.

URI Ref HV5801 .I575 1992

International Handbook on Drug Control. 1992.

Drug trade in 21 countries including the United States.

URI Ref HV6025 .O87 1994

The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. 1994.

Sections on Theoretical and historical perspectives, Crime and causation, Crime control and criminal justice, Social dimensions of crime and justice. Twenty-five chapters by British scholars, each with an extensive bibliography.

Consult a thesaurus before beginning a search of a periodical index to identify the specific meanings authorized for use in a particular index. A thesaurus will help you expand or narrow focus by providing major subject headings with hierarchical subdivisions and cross references to Broader, Narrower or Related terms.

URI Ref Index Area

Booth, Barbara and Michael Blair. Thesaurus of Sociological Indexing Terms.   5th ed. 1999.

For use with Sociological Abstracts.

URI Govt Pub J28.28:

National Criminal Justice Thesaurus. Keep Latest Edition Only. (Annual)

For use with National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Database.

URI Ref Index Area

Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms. 9th ed. 2001.

For Use with PsycInfo.

An index to periodicals is a systematically arranged list of articles giving enough information about each item to identify it and trace where it was published. An abstract gives a summary of an item in addition to identifying it.

http://www.uri.edu/library/reference_databases/title.html

Academic Search Premier. (EBSCOhost) Updated daily.

Provides full text for nearly 3,180 scholarly publications covering academic areas of study including social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies. Updated daily. Coverage varies by publication, but generally covers the early-to-mid 1990s to present.

http://www.uri.edu/library/reference_databases/title.html

LexisNexis Academic. Updated daily.

News, law, and business information. Legal sources include federal statutory and regulatory law, state statutory and case law and court rules. All sources are full-text.

http://www.uri.edu/library/reference_databases/title.html

ArticleFirst. (FirstSearch) 1990-. Updated daily.

Author, title and subject access to interdisciplinary database of over 13,000 journals.

URI Ref Index Area

Criminal Justice Abstracts. Vol. 9 (March 1977)-. Quarterly.

Continues Crime and delinquency literature. 1970-76. Abstracts books, journal articles, dissertations and reports, arranged alphabetically in six sections: Crime, the offender and the victim; Juvenile justice and delinquency; Police; Courts and the legal process; Adult corrections; Crime prevention and control strategies. Subject, author, geographical indexes.

http://www.uri.edu/library/reference_databases/title.html

ERIC. (FirstSearch) 1966-. Updated monthly.

Government-sponsored index to journal literature and technical reports in education and education-related areas collected by the Educational Resources Information Center.

URI Ref Index Area

Index to Legal Periodicals and Books. 1994-. Monthly.

Continues Index to Legal Periodicals 1908-1993. Indexes more than 620 legal periodicals. Includes Tables of Cases referred to in articles, statutes table, separate index to book reviews.

http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS523

URI Govt Pub J28.31/2:1994-

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Document Data Base. Updated annually.

Index to NCJRS, the research library of the Department of Justice. Abstracts books and book chapters, journals, conference papers, government publications.

http://www.uri.edu/library/reference_databases/title.html

PsycINFO. (CSA) 1872-. Updated monthly.

Indexes and abstracts books, book chapters and more than 1300 journals. Important for causes and effects of criminal behavior, rehabilitation, prison psychology, job stress, personnel and training, and any subject that relates to human behavior.

URI Ref Z7161 .S65

Social Sciences Citation Index. 1969-1997; 2003-. Updated quarterly, with annual cumulation.

Indexes references or citations mentioned in more than 1700 journals in social and behavioral sciences and more than 5600 journals that have items on social sciences. 1998-2002 are on Reference CD-ROM.

http://www.uri.edu/library/reference_databases/title.html

Sociological Abstracts. (CSA) 1963-. Updated monthly.

Indexes more than 2000 journals in 30 languages, books, book reviews, dissertations, conference papers. One of the best sources for criminology, sociology of law, social problems related to crime. Also covers social policy and welfare, police and corrections. Cross-cultural coverage. Vols. 1-50 (1952-2002) at Ref. HM1 .S67.

URI Ref Index Area

Women's Studies Abstracts. 1972-. Quarterly.

Women as victims; limited coverage of women as perpetuators.

Most statistical sources are produced by government agencies that collect, compile, analyze and publish statistics for general use.

URI Govt Pub Index Area

American Statistics Index. 1974-. Monthly, with Quarterly and Annual cumulations.

Indexes, abstracts and provides call numbers (SUDOC numbers) for statistical publications of all federally produced statistical data.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs

Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Opening page provides a short list of subjects from which more specific and detailed information can be determined. Each section is uniquely organized, but covers information about abstracts, data collections, summary finding, index of available files, list of related sites.

http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/cjlinks/

Criminal Justice Links.

Comprehensive site maintained by Cecil Greek of Florida State University. Includes FBI, Bureau of Justices Statistics. Searches can be through a flowchart of the sequence of events in the criminal justice system or by using the links following the flowchart.

http://ncjrs.org

Justice Information Center: A Service of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

Authoritative. Covers 10 major areas with either links to other topics or full text documents or both: Corrections, Courts, Crime Prevention, Criminal Justice Statistics, Drugs and Crime, International, Juvenile Justice, Law Enforcement, Research and Evaluation, Victims.

http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html

CCE Ref HA202 .U5

URI Ref HA202 .U5

URI Govt Pub HA202 .U5

Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1878-. Annual.

Most useful general source of statistics on all aspects of the United States.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

Crime in the United States. 1999-. Updated annually.

Continues Uniform Crime Reports (1930-2000). Information collected from approximately 17,000 local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. Characteristics, elements, volume, diversity and complexity of reported crime. Population size is the only correlate of crime used in this publication. Other factors such as Economic conditions, Cultural factors, Family conditions, Climate are of equal concern but are not related to the data presented.

Bibliographies

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Subject bibliographies focus a search on a specific topic. They may either list only books or both books and periodical articles. They may also provide brief annotations. Using an annotated bibliography provides the ability to evaluate the usefulness of a source before going to the trouble of finding it on the shelf of the library.

URI Ref Z5703 .B44 1991

Beirne, Piers and Joan Hill. Comparative Criminology: An Annotated Bibliography. 1991

Pt 1-Meaning and measurement; Pt 2-Cross-national crime rates; Pt 3-Social control and criminal justice.

URI Ref HV6245 .F74 1996

Frasier, David K. Murder Cases of the Twentieth Century: Biographies and Bibliographies of 280 Convicted and Confused Killers.  1996.

Killers considered of historical significance, excluding assassins and gangsters. Indexed by type of crime, geographical and place names.

URI Ref Z5703.4 .P75 M33 1998

McConnell, Elizabeth Huffmaster and Laura J. Moriarty, American Prisons: An Annotated Bibliography. 1998.

Contains annotations for selected references in the Encyclopedia of American Prisons. Extensive index of authors, cases, subjects (including "known as" subjects such as capital punishment also being indexed under death penalty and executions).

URI Ref Z5703.4 .P75 O75 1997

O'Shea, Kathleen A. and Beverly R. Fletcher, Female Offenders: An Annotated Bibliography. 1997.

Annotations arranged under Criminology; Crime; Arrest, prosecution, sentencing; Female juveniles; Corrections; Probation and parole; Political prisoners; Bibliographies. Author and subject indexes.

URI Ref Z5703.5 .U5 R87 2000

Russell, Katheryn, Heather L. Pfeifer and Judith L. Jones. Race and Crime: An Annotated Bibliography. 2000.

Part I, Race-specific research: White, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic, African American. Part II, General race research: Multi-racial; Special issues, edited volumes and guides; Government documents, reports and commission findings. Part III, Electronic resources.

Web Sources

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http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs

Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Opening page provides a short list of subjects from which more specific and detailed information can be determined. Each section is uniquely organized, but covers information about abstracts, data collections, summary finding, index of available files, list of related sites.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

Crime in the United States. 1999-. Updated annually.

Continues Uniform Crime Reports (1930-2000). Information collected from approximately 17,000 local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. Characteristics, elements, volume, diversity and complexity of reported crime. Population size is the only correlate of crime used in this publication. Other factors such as Economic conditions, Cultural factors, Family conditions, Climate are of equal concern but are not related to the data presented.

http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/cjlinks/

Criminal Justice Links.

Comprehensive site maintained by Cecil Geek of Florida State University. Includes FBI, Bureau of Justices Statistics. Searches can be through a flowchart of the sequence of events in the criminal justice system or by using the links following the flowchart.

http://www.essential.org/dpic/

Death Penalty Information Center.

Analysis and information on issues regarding death penalty with links to problems on cost, racial disparity, trends in capital punishment.

http://ncjrs.org

Justice Information Center: A Service of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

Authoritative. Covers 10 major areas with either links to other topics or full text documents or both: Corrections, Courts, Crime Prevention, Criminal Justice Statistics, Drugs and Crime, International, Juvenile Justice, Law Enforcement, Research and Evaluation, Victims.

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/

National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. 1978-

Sponsored by a number of government agencies to preserve and share data resources. Categorized by subject. Allows keyword searches.

http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html

CCE Ref HA202 .U5

URI Ref HA202 .U5

URI Govt Pub HA202 .U5

Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1878-. Annual.

Most useful general source of statistics on all aspects of the United States.

http://www.ussc.gov/

U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Information about the Commission. Also tracks its activities and has links to statistics and commissions by state.

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If you need further assistance, please stop by the Reference Desk or call (401) 874-2653.

M. Keefe·11/00, rev. 11/02