Library Guides: Criminal Justice &amp; Sociology (Penn State Berks): Find Special Types of Sources (Government Documents, Laws, Cases, Statistics, Videos)

Criminal Justice Librarian

Brett Spencer

Email Me

Contact:

Office 108, Thun Library, Penn State Berks

(610) 396-6261

Subjects: Campus: Berks

Government Publications, Laws, & Court Cases

One easy way to find government publications on a topic is by limited to web sites with gov in their web addresses. We can do that in Google with the site:gov command:

juvenile diversion programs site:gov

Government Reports

Homeland Security Digital Library--"nation's premier tool for homeland security policy and strategy research. The collection includes homeland security strategy, policy and research documents published by: Federal, state and local government agencies; International governments and institutions; and Research institutions, universities, think tanks."

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS)--" summaries of more than 150,000 publications on criminal justice, including Federal, state, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, and unpublished research. Subject areas include corrections, courts, drugs and crime, law enforcement, juvenile justice, crime statistics, and victims of crime."

Laws

There are three basic types of laws: statutes, regulations, and court cases (case law).

Here are some databases with U.S. and PA laws and cases.

For citation examples, please see A Brief Guide to Legal Citations in APA Style.

🏛 Statutes

Statutes are primary legal sources. Statutes are laws enacted by Congress or the state legislatures. A collection of statutes is sometimes referred to as a code.

Federal Statutes

U.S. Code at Findlaw.com
The U.S. Code contains the permanent laws of the United States. Please use the "Search by Keyword or Citation" box in the center of the screen (rather than the search box at the top right):

United States Statutes at Large
contains both permanent and temporary laws passed by Congress (temporary laws might include budget allocations or the naming of a post office).

State Statutes

FindLaw.com
Scroll down to the "Browse Cases and Codes" section.
Statutes of Pennsylvania and the Constitution of Pennsylvania
from the Pennsylvania General Assembly

✔ Regulations

Administrative regulations are primary legal sources. Administrative regulations are laws created by an executive branch agency or department such as the EPA, ATF, FCC, or FAA.

Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) [Government Publishing Office]
find federal regulations
Law Library at the Library of Congress
Find state regulations

⚖ Court Cases

Court cases (case law) are primary legal sources. Case laws are generated by the application of general laws to specific court cases.

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Click the "Cases" box on the left side of the screen.
Provides access to a wide range of news, business, legal, and reference information. Covers many news sources for 20 years. Court cases and statutes from all federal and state jurisdictions are included. Most resources can be searched in full text.

Power Search Tip: If you are not able to find the case, try Googling your case and identifying the citation. Then, type the citation into Nexis Uni.

Law Reviews

Law reviews are secondary legal sources. They are scholarly legal journal articles that analyze the law.

Try searching the resources below for law reviews:

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Click the "Law Reviews" on the left side of the screen.
Provides access to a wide range of news, business, legal, and reference information. Covers many news sources for 20 years. Court cases and statutes from all federal and state jurisdictions are included. Most resources can be searched in full text.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Law reviews as well as Supreme Court opinions, U.S. Attorney General opinions, treaties and international agreements, and the Federal Register.
Hein Online is a full-text research collection offering more than 900 legal journals; federal publications such as the Federal Register, U.S. treaties and agreements, U.S. Supreme Court opinions, federal legislative histories, presidential documents; a collection of legal classics; and Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court competition materials.

CJ Videos

Criminal Justice and Public Safety in Video This link opens in a new window
The "netflix" of criminal justice! Offers training videos and documentaries.
Criminal Justice and Public Safety in Video includes hundreds of hours of video for professionals and students in criminal justice and public safety. Documentaries and interviews provide personal field experiences as well as insight into the function and controversies of the justice system. Students will benefit from invaluable training videos that demonstrate how to respond to potentially-dangerous situations, all from the safety of the classroom. Featuring titles by In the Line of Duty, BBC, and A&E Television, Criminal Justice & Public Safety in Video provides an authoritative resource for both students and experts.
Kanopy Streaming Service This link opens in a new window
Another streaming service with CJ documentaries that you won't find elsewhere.
Kanopy distributes documentaries, independent and world cinema, and classic and award-winning films from a variety of filmmakers, including the Media Education Foundation. Search for specific movie titles, or browse a list of all the online documentaries licensed by the Penn State University Libraries. To find out when the license for a Kanopy video expires, contact the Music and Media Center at musiccenter@psu.edu.

Instruments

Instruments (surveys, tests, quizzes) can be hard to find because they are often not included in CJ articles and books. You can start by searching in PsycTests. You can also search in CJ article databases with keywords like instrument, survey, test, questionnaire, inventory.

PsycTESTS (formerly listed as APA PsycTests®) This link opens in a new window
The starting point for finding surveys, tests, and other types of instruments.
PsycTESTS is a research database that provides access to psychological tests, measures, scales, surveys, and other assessments as well as descriptive information about the test and its development and administration.

Statistics

Bureau of Justice Statistics
A gold mine of CJ data, crime rates, CJ personnel, prisons, probation, and more!
Uniform Crime Reports
U.S. data on murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft, number of arrests, hate crime, police officers killed and assaulted. Compiled by the FBI from thousands of local police departments.
Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System
Quick access to PA crime stats.
CrimeMapping.com
Many Berks County police departments feed their data into this site.

Power Search Tips: You can also search for data in article databases by typing in keywords like statistics, rate, frequency, quantitative.

Google Images
is also a great source of data--just be sure that it comes from a credible government or university site. Type in your topic with keywords like graph, chart, figure, table to locate visual representations of data in Google Images.