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For questions regarding the selection of materials for the collection, please contact .
For reference assistance or to arrange a library instruction class, please contact .Welcome to the criminal justice resources page. The purpose of this page is to aid criminal justice researchers by highlighting scholarly and professional sources of information.
Please select one of the following options:
BOOKS
Libraries' Catalog - Lists books, journal titles, government documents in the Gorgas Library as well as the Business, Education, Health, and Science Libraries.
Bounds Law Library Catalog - lists books, journal titles, documents in the Law Library at the Law Center on Bryant Drive.
Articles
Choose one of the electronic databases listed below to find articles. Then, simply go to the Library's Databases page (http://www.lib.ua.edu/databases/dbsearch.htm) and select the database you want from the alphabet in the center of the page. Many of the databases have full-text (FT=full-text) copies of articles. Others provide citations and abstracts.
Academic Search Elite - general database with popular news items as well as scholarly criminal justice journals. FT
Criminal Justice Abstracts - provides abstracts about most aspects of criminal justice from 1968-present. Lists journal articles, books, documents, dissertations.
Expanded Academic ASAP - another general database with popular news items as well as scholarly criminal justice journals. FT
International Bibliography of Social Sciences - from the British Library of Political and Economic Science, indexes the information contained in over 2,600 social sciences journals and 6,000 books each year.
Legal Trac - indexes leading law journals. Many of the journals are available in the Law Library. FT
Social Work Abstracts - covers social pathology, intervention, crime prevention, domestic violence, rehabilitation, offender counseling.
Sociological Abstracts - covers any aspect of society, including crime, violence, drug issues, schools, media.
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe - offers case briefs, law reviews, legal news, current and general news, newspapers, federal and state laws, regulations, TV and radio news transcripts. FT
GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS
The federal government generates a wealth of criminal justice data. The following resources can help you pinpoint government documents on your topic:
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) - Links to criminal justice documents produced by a variety of government agencies. Has two separate searches; one for abstracts and one for full-text documents.
National Institute of Justice(NIJ) - "The research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice."
LAW
This list includes law itself as well as sources of law reviews and legal information.
Great American Court Cases (Ref 385 .A4 G68) - A reference book on the first floor of the Gorgas Library that provides easy-to-read summaries of historic court cases.
Legal Trac - Indexes leading law journals. Many of the journals are available in the Law Library.
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe - offers case transcripts as well as law reviews and legal news.
STATISTICS
Some of these resources are web sites that you can link to directly from this page. Others are reference books that are available on the first floor of the Gorgas Library in the Reference Room.
General Sources
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) - Provides access to a vast archive of social science datasets for research. Part of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
Statistical Abstract of the United States (Ask at Information Desk) - General statistics on the population as well as social, economic, and political data.
Dictionary of Statistics & Methodology : a nontechnical guide for the social sciences. (Gorgas Reference HA 17 .V64 1999) - What is the difference between a longitudinal study and a cross-section? What is the "F" factor in statistics? This book defines these terms and more
Statistical Handbook of Women in America (Gorgas Reference HQ 1420 .T34 1996) - Women offenders and victims.
U. S. Census Bureau - Many statistics from Census 2000 are now available online.
CJ Statistical Sources
Uniform Crime Reports - Source for the crime index. The crime index includes statistics on murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. Special sections on number of arrests, hate crime, police officers killed and assaulted. Compiled by the FBI from local police departments.
Crime in America's Top-Rated Cities (Ref HV 6787 .C745 2000) - Statistics on major crimes by city as well as statistics on AIDS, death penalty, law, anti-crime programs, illegal drugs, hate crimes.
City Crime Rankings(Gorgas Reference HV 6787) - More statistics on cities.
Crime state rankings. (Gorgas Reference HV6787 .C77) - Compares crime statistics between states.
Bureau of Justice Statistics - "The BJS web site is a gateway to data on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, many aspects of corrections, the operation of justice systems at all levels of government, criminal justice expenditure and employment, prosecutorial practices and polices, public attitudes toward crime, numbers of arrests, drugs and crime, guns and crime. The BJS web site incorporates information from the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.
Corrections Yearbooks (Gorgas Reference HV 8482 .A24 1999) - Covers adult corrections, jails, and private prisons.
Vital Statistics in Corrections (Gorgas Reference HV 8482. A1 V57x) - budgets and expenditures, populations, facilities, health care, management, personnel for prisons and jails.
Statistical Handbook on Violence in America (Gorgas Reference HN90 .V5 S833) - Offers statistics on victims, offenders, homicides, executions, drugs, arrest trends, location, specific groups such as adolescents.
Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center - Provides law enforcement directory, accident reports, crime rates and arrests by county, school violence, juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, and domestic violence statistics for Alabama.
REFERENCE BOOKS
Reference books can give you an overview of a topic, additional sources of information, and definitions of important terms. For these reasons, reference books are a good starting point for research. Here is a small sample of what is available on the first floor of the Gorgas Library:
The Encyclopedia of Police Science. (Gorgas Reference HV 7901 E53 1989) - Topics, people, organizations related to police work such as patrol, crowd control, assaults on police.
Criminal Justice Information : how to find it, how to use it. (Gorgas Reference HV 7419.5 C75 1998) - Explains the process of research in criminal justice, including legal and government research, and lists helpful web sites.
Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior(Ref HV6017 .E53 2001). - New, excellent work that includes thematic essays like alcohol and crime as well as essays on types of crime such as blackmail, hate crimes, stalking.
Encyclopedia of Capital Punishment (Ref HV8694 .G76 1998) - Execution methods, legal processes, important people.
Encyclopedia of American Prisons.(Ref HV9471 .E425 1996) - Specific prisons as well as themes like prisoner culture and procedures.
Encyclopedia of Women and Crime(Ref HV6046 .E56 2000) - A historical and international perspective on women as both offenders and victims.
The Encyclopedia of American Crime(Ref. HV 6789 .S54 1982x) - Historical overview of crime in the US
THESES and DISSERTATIONS
The Department of Criminal Justice and Gorgas Library hold copies of the theses written by former CJ students. You can find these theses as well as theses and dissertations from other universities using the following resources:
Current Research at University of Alabama - Searches for theses and dissertations published only by students at UA.
Digital Dissertations (Dissertation Abstracts) - "Includes citations for dissertations written from 1861 to those accepted as recently as last semester from all over the US; those published from 1980 forward also include 350-words abstracts, written by the authors Citations for master's theses from 1988 forward include 150-word abstracts. Over 100,000 titles are available full-text." For citations to dissertations outside UA, you can order the dissertations through interlibrary loan .
MATERIALS FROM OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSITY of ALABAMA
Sometimes, you may want books or articles that are not available at the UA Libraries. The Libraries offer services to help you obtain these materials.
Interlibrary Loan System - Permits you to order articles and books from other libraries across the United States. ILL staff will notify you when the item arrives. Please be aware that some deliveries incur charges for copying or delivery.
Kudzu - A special part of the Interlibrary Loan system available through the Libraries Catalog (http://library.ua.edu/) that allows you to both search for books at a dozen southeastern libraries and order them online.
CAREER INFORMATION
Many of these web sites offer actual job postings. Others provide advice on resumes, expected earnings, and working conditions in various criminal justice professions. Please note that the Career Center on the top floor of the Ferguson Center provides career counseling, help with resumes, mock interviews, and assessment testing.
Criminal Justice Career Resources
ACADEMIC DEPARTMENTS
This section lists academic departments offering advanced degrees in criminal justice.
University of Alabama Department of Criminal Justice
Peterson's Guide to Graduate Schools
ORGANIZATIONS
Organizations include professional associations, centers, academies, and political action groups. These groups provide news, professional contacts, accreditation standards, publications, advocacy information, discussion groups, details about upcoming conferences, and presentation opportunities.
Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences
American Sociological Association
American Correctional Association
American Society of Criminology
Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
National Center for Victims of Crime
GUIDES to WEB SITES
These guides list the best criminal justice information available on the free Internet. However, be sure to evaluate any internet information that you find according to scholarly guidelines. It is recommended that undergraduates check with a professor or teaching assistant before using a web site as a source in a research paper.
Florida State University: School of Criminology & Criminal Justice - The most respected general guide to criminal justice information on the Internet.
Institute for Criminal Justice Studies: Web Links - "One of the most comprehensive web links pages for Criminal Justice Information on the Internet."
Dr. Frank Schmalleger's Cybrary: The World's Criminal Justice Directory - Extensive links to an CJ information
Rutgers University Research Methods Tutorial - Tutors researchers in social science research methods.
APA EXAMPLES
The American Psychological Association's style guide (5th edition) is the official guide to formatting papers and citing sources in the criminal justice profession. The guide is available at the Information Desk on the first floor of the Gorgas Library and inside the Department of Criminal Justice. Here are also some links to web sites with APA examples:
Examples from Purdue University Online Writing Lab Web Site
Tutorial from University of Southern Mississippi Libraries Web Site
Examples from Writer's Handbook of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center
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