LibGuides: Criminal Justice Studies: CRIM 495

Useful Databases

Criminal Justice Databases:

National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts (1970-present)
The NCJRS: National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts Database is published by the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice's National Criminal Justice Reference Service. It provides thousands of summaries of important law enforcement and criminal justice publications including books, government reports, research reports, journals and unpublished research. Content dates range from 1970 to the present.. Unique elements of the collection include agency produced documents and final grant reports of Office of Justice Programs sponsored research. The database excludes most legal decisions, opinions, and statutes. Documents are either written in English or have an English-language summary.

Sociology and Psychology Databases:

SocINDEX with Full Text
In addition to nearly 900 full-text journals, SocINDEX with Full Text also contains informative abstracts for more than 1,500 "core" coverage journals dating as far back as 1895.
In addition, it also provides data mined from nearly 420 "priority" coverage journals and over 2,900 "selective" coverage journals. offers comprehensive coverage of sociology, encompassing all sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study. These include abortion, criminology and criminal justice, demography, ethnic and racial studies, gender studies, marriage and family, political sociology, religion, rural and urban sociology, social development, social psychology, social structure, social work, socio-cultural anthropology, sociological history, sociological research, sociological theory, substance abuse and other addictions, violence and others.

Journalism and News Databases:

Factiva from Dow Jones (1979-present)
Provides current and retrospective news stories, periodical articles, and company and industry financial data covering many subjects. Includes the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Richmond Times, Roanoke Times, and Virginian-Pilot.

Useful Resources

Bureau of Justice Statistics-Victims
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) collects information from victims on nonfatal violent and property crimes, reported and not reported to the police, against persons age 12 or older from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. It produces national rates and levels of personal and property victimization.
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Violent crimes measured include rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault.
Property crimes include household burglary, motor vehicle theft, and theft.
CDC-Violence Prevention
Violence is a serious public health problem. From infants to the elderly, it affects people in all stages of life. Many more survive violence and suffer physical, mental, and or emotional health problems throughout the rest of their lives. CDC is committed to stopping violence before it begins.

Search Strategies

Keep your search as simple as you can. Pick out a couple of key words or short phrases. Remember to play around with your search terms, using synonyms and related terms to find more results.
Use Boolean terms:
Use truncation: victim* tells the database to find victim, victims, victimization, victimized, etc.
Use quotes to search exact phrases
If a database has a thesaurus, use it to find the best search terms
Follow citations

CRAAP Test

C: Currency: The timeliness of the information. When was the information published or posted?
R: Relevance: Is the information directly related to your topic?
A: Authority: The source of the information. What are the author's credentials?
A: Accuracy: The reliability and correctness of the content. Where does the information come from?
P: Purpose: The reason the information exists. What biases are involved? Is the information fact, opinion or propaganda?

Use this link to print a copy of the C.R.A.A.P. Test created by the librarians at Cal State Chico.

Criminal Justice Studies: CRIM 495

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CRAAP Test