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CRIMJ 100: Introduction to Criminal Justice

Professor Nathan Kruis

Useful Library Databases

Best Bets

Academic Search Complete (Ebsco)
Great interdisciplinary database with content that covers most topics and subject areas.
Academic Search Complete is a comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format.
Criminal Justice Abstracts
Provides abstracts of articles from the major journals in criminology and related disciplines, as well as books and reports from government and nongovernmental agencies.
Provides abstracts of articles from the major journals in criminology and related disciplines, as well as books and reports from government and nongovernmental agencies. For each document, an informative summary of the findings, methodology, and conclusions is provided. Topics include crime trends, prevention projects, corrections, juvenile delinquency, police, courts, offenders, victims, and sentencing.
Sociological Abstracts
CSA Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Use the "GET IT" button to link to the full text of many of the articles.
CSA Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,700 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Records added after 1974 contain in-depth and nonevaluative abstracts of journal articles.
PsycINFO (via ProQuest)
PsycINFO provides access to international literature in psychology and related disciplines
PsycINFO provides access to international literature in psychology and related disciplines. Unrivaled in its depth of psychological coverage and respected worldwide for its high quality, the database is enriched with literature from an array of disciplines related to psychology such as psychiatry, education, business, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, law, linguistics, and social work. Nearly all records contain nonevaluative summaries, and all records from 1967 to the present are indexed using the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms.
Nexis Uni
Provides access to court cases and statues from federal and state jurisdictions, along with other legal resources
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.
ERIC (USDE)
Major database for education literature, useful resources for content related to juveniles, school violence, counseling and psychological issues related to school age children.
ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) is the major database for education literature, sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Education.
LionSearch
The library's "FIND" box that searches for articles, books, and other materials through our entire collection.

Additional Resources

Criminal Justice and Public Safety in Video
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.
Criminology - Oxford Bibliographies
Oxford Bibliographies in Criminology is a much-needed online guide to the essential literature across the various subfields of criminology. It combines the best features of a high-level encyclopedia and a traditional bibliography in a style tailored to meet the needs of today’s online researchers. Each article, written and reviewed by top scholars in the field, is rich with citations and annotations, expert recommendations, and narrative pathways to the most important works for virtually all areas of criminology.

Google Scholar
Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Once you set your institutional preferences, links to full-text, if available at Penn State, should appear.
Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Once you set your institutional preferences, links to full-text, if available at Penn State, should appear.

Top Journals in Criminal Justice

Reference Mining and Cited Reference Searching