Starting Points
Finding Statistics about Crime and Justice in the United States
Search for Reports and Online Publications
- National Criminal
Justice Reference Service Abstracts Database contains summaries of more
than 190,000 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and unpublished research.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. Full text links to some documents included. (Tip:
California State University, Northridge students and faculty should use
the Library Catalog and CSUN
List of Electronic Periodicals to determine whether the Oviatt Library
has needed books and periodicals from this database which are not available
free from this web site).
- NCJRS
Advanced Search searches the entire NCJRS Web site including more than
3,500 Full Text Publications, thousands of summaries of publications from
the NCJRS Abstracts Database, related links, over 500 questions and answers
from the NCJRS knowledge base, conferences, and Federal Justice Web pages
including the agencies of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, Office on Violence Against Women, National Institute of Corrections,
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness/Office
for Domestic Preparedness.
- Homeland Security
Digital Library (HSDL) provides full text access to U.S. policy documents,
presidential directives, national strategy documents, and theses and reports
from universities, organizations, and local and state agencies on topics
relating to homeland security. (This digital library is sponsored by the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Grants and Training and
hosted by the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate
School).
More Federal Reference Sources on Crime and Justice
Federal Justice Agencies
Executive agencies with their major focus on crime and justice
Examples of other interesting federal agency sites:
Judicial Branch
Strategies to Find More
- Ways to Search for Government Information,
an Oviatt Library guide on how to identify and locate government information,
includes list of indexes for government publications (some of these indexes
are online), subject guides to legal sources, and links to Internet search
engines such as Google's U.S. Government
Search and USA.gov which are specifically
for government web sites.
- Search the internet site of an agency that collects statistics or funds
research and publications of interest to you. Use the list
of federal justice agencies above as a starting point. State and local
data may also be of interest. State
and Local Government on the Net (HelloMetro) and State
and Local Governments (Library of Congress) are two of the sites that
provide convenient access to the web pages of state and local governments.
(Tip: Many state home pages include links to city government
web sites.) Examples of state and local sites of interest:
- Use other library resources which include more than just government information.
The Oviatt Library Home Page and
Library Catalog are helpful
places for California State University, Northridge users to access these
resources; they also may Ask
a Librarian for help.
Created and maintained by Mary
M. Finley
Questions or comments: mary.finley@csun.edu
Links checked: 22 August 2008
