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Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice is the study of crime, criminal behavior, and the justice system. It encompasses law enforcement, criminal courts, prisons, and crime victims. It is an interdisciplinary field that touches on sociology, psychology, politics and law.

Background Information || Journal Articles || Core Journals || Books || Websites || Statistics ||Style Guides

Find Background Information: Reference Materials in the McHenry Library Reference Collection

Save yourself time and frustration by browsing through an encyclopedia, dictionary, or handbook to get an overview of the subject and determine the best way to approach your topic. The library maintains many more sources than those listed here, so it is important to browse the shelves around the call number to locate other relevant resources.

International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences McH Ref  H41 .I58 2001 
Covers topics such as crime in relation to class and ethnicity, social justice, as well as prisons, drugs, delinquency, justice studies, sex offenders, etc.

Encyclopedia of Sociology McH Ref HM17 .E5 2000
Provides in-depth information about crime from a sociological perspective including cultural perspectives, discrimination in sentencing, juvenile delinquency, violence and aggression.

Encyclopedia of Psychology McH Ref BF31.E54 2000 or Encyclopedia of Human Emotion McH Ref BF531 .E55 1999 
Covers topics such as criminal behavior, addiction and treatment, violence and agression, victims and victimization.

Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice McH Ref HV6017.E52 2002
Brings together research across academic disciplines and covers topics such as domestic violence, stalking, drugs and crime, legal rights, victims, terrorism etc.

Encyclopedia of Women and Crime McH Ref HV6046.E56 2000
Discusses crimes against women, as well as topics specific to female offenders such as incarcerated mothers, courts, case processing etc. Offers both U.S. and international perspectives.

Dictionaries and Handbooks:

Find Journal Articles

Note: All online resources are available by connecting to the Library Research Web page (http://library.ucsc.edu/research.html) and searching for the resource in the Title Search for Online Resources box. These databases are accessible from off-campus using Off Campus Access (oca.ucsc.edu/).

• Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost) - is a searchable database with citations and abstracts for journal articles covering all academic disciplines. Full text is available for more than 50% of the articles in this database. Subject areas: art and art history, general subjects, humanities, science and engineering, social sciences.

• LexisNexis - The news section contains the text of many regional, national, and international newspapers and other news sources.

• Criminal Justice Abstracts - www.ncjrs.org - Search through summaries of more than 170,000 criminal justice publications.

• Sociological Abstracts - contains citations for journal articles and documents in sociology and other social and behavioral sciences

• PsycINFO (psychology) - Citations and abstracts of articles, books, and book chapters with information on psychology and related disciplines.

• Ethnic Newswatch - full-text newspaper and journal articles. Available in English or Spanish. News, culture and history from the ethnic, minority, and native press

The UC-eLinks icon in most online databases will lead you to the journal articles. UC-eLinks will provide links to online text when available, the call numbers for print copies of journals, and forms for requesting items through interlibrary loan if UCSC doesn't own the journal. See the UC-eLinks Guide (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/elinks.html) for more information.

Find Books

CRUZCAT (http://cruzcat.ucsc.edu) is UCSC's Online Library Catalog. In addition to finding information about books, it contains links to full-text journal titles. Do not search for article titles in CRUZCAT - instead search using the title of the journal. CRUZCAT includes books, periodicals, maps, videos, government publications, CDs, music scores, and more materials located in both McHenry and the Science and Engineering Library.

Be sure to look at the subjects linked in the CRUZCAT record. Clicking on relevant subjects will lead you to more material on that subject.

Try the following selected Library of Congress subject headings to find books in criminal justice.

Need more? The Melvyl Union Catalog (melvyl.cdlib.org) contains the library holdings of all UC campuses. It also has links to request items UCSC does not own, through interlibrary loan. Although it contains links to full-text journal titles, do not search using article titles in Melvyl. Search using the title of the journal you need.

Find Websites

National Criminal Justice Information Center www.ncjrs.org. Provides links to all Department of Justice agencies such as the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Office for Victims of Crime. Highlights major events, legislation, and newly published reports. Select Library/Abstracts from menubar to find publications and statistical reports.

Criminal Justice Links from Florida State University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice: http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/cjlinks/ Includes topical areas such as federal criminal justice agencies, crime and prevention, juvenile justice, police, courts, forensics, media, drugs and alcohol etc.

American Civil Liberties (ACLU) Criminal Justice: http://www.aclu.org/CriminalJustice/CriminalJusticeMain.cfm. Includes criminal justice issues such as juvenile justice, death penalty, racial bias, search and seizure, sentencing and prisons, and war on drugs.

Not all information on the Web has not been evaluated by librarians or scholars. If you are using a Web page as a possible research citation, apply the criteria on the Web Evaluation Guide (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/evaluate.html) to determine the quality of your source.

Crime and Delinquency in California Gov Pubs Ref HV7254.C2C74 OR select year at caag.state.ca.us/cjsc/publications/candd/pub.htm
Crimes and crime trends, arrests by crime category, prisons and prison expenditures

Offender Information Reports www.bpt.ca.gov/ReportsResearch/OffenderInformation.htm California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Provides demographic characteristics of the prison population, as well as detailed reports about recidivism, behavior, DNA collection, parolees, time served, etc.

Bureau of Justice Statistics www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/
Find statistics about crime and victims, criminal offenders, law enforcement, prosecution, courts and sentencing, corrections, etc.

National Criminal Justice Information Center www.ncjrs.org. Select Library/Abstracts from menubar to search for publications and to find reports containing statistics.

Sourcebook of U.S. Criminal Justice Statistics Gov Pubs Ref HV6787.S68 www.albany.edu/sourcebook/
Includes statistics on crimes and victims, as well as public opinion polls. Many tabulations presented by age, sex, race, and geographic area.

Uniform Crime Reports for the United States Gov Pubs Ref HV6787.A1 A3 www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm
Published by the FBI. Reports crime statistics aggregated from multiple U.S. law enforcement agencies. Includes crime index, violent and property crimes, and hate crimes.

To find more statistical sources refer to How to Find Statistics URL: library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/statistics.html

How To Start using APA Bibliographic Style: library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/apa_citations.html
How To Use MLA Bibliographic Style: library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/mla_citations.html
Uncle Sam: Brief Guide to Citing Government Publications: http://exlibris.memphis.edu/resource/unclesam/citeweb.html