Criminal Justice

The Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Wyoming, in the College of Arts & Sciences, has an interdisciplinary focus and works to prepare students for such careers as law enforcement at all levels, court administration, law school, corrections, the military, homeland security, and private security.

This page is a selective guide to books, articles, documents, reference sources, and Internet resources for criminal justice, criminology, and related areas.

Keyword Search Strategies:

"Books & more" takes you to the UW Libraries catalog where you can search for books, reports, theses, government documents, etc. Keyword search generally gives you the most flexibility. Just use the Keyword Search tab on the main catalog page. When searching general terms such as drug abuse, law enforcement, etc., searching them as a phrase usually gets the best results. To combine general terms with more specific words in order to focus your search, enter the word(s) in the additional box(es) to restrict your results to sources covering the particular aspects of interest to you. For example, to find things on the effect of drug abuse on crime, search drug abuse as a phrase in the first box, then add crime in the second box, which retrieves only those items containing the terms in both boxes. Another example would be searching law enforcement as a phrase in one box and racial profiling, also as a phrase, in the second.

LC Subject Headings:

More structured subject searching than is possible in keyword searching is facilitated by a standardized vocabulary system called Library of Congress (LC) Subject Headings. To take advantage of the navigational help they provide, highlight "Subject" in the "Find Results In" box on the Basic Search screen. If this approach doesn't seem to work, use the Keyword Search option as mentioned above, then highlight "Subject" in the "Find Results In" box. This, again, allows for additional flexibility in defining a desired topic. Some recommended headings to try, with explanatory notes where needed:

	Criminal justice administration of (a primary subject term for the general topic of administration of criminal justice); can also be subdivided to narrow the scope, e.g.:
Criminal justice administration of United States
Criminal justice administration of Bibliography

Among the other numerous subject headings representing various criminal justice related topics are the following selected examples:

	Corrections
	Crime (Note: good example of a general term that can be subdivided for more specificity, for example:
Crime prevention
Crime sociological aspects
Crime Wyoming

	Criminal investigation
	Criminal law
	Criminal procedure
	Criminals
	Criminology
	Hate crimes
	Imprisonment
	Juvenile delinquency
	Law enforcement
	Organized crime
	Police
	Prisons
	Sex crimes
	Violent crimes

Reference Sources:

International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Coe Ref H 41 .I58 2001 A 26-volume set surveying the state of knowledge in the social and behavioral sciences as of the end of the 20th century. Its interdisciplinary coverage makes it a valuable source of background information for the various fields relevant to criminal justice students and practitioners, as well as researchers investigating areas outside their primary field of expertise.

Dictionary of American Criminal Justice: Key Terms and Major Supreme Court Cases. Coe Ref HV 7411 .C53 1998 Concise listing of the field's terminology and relevant court cases in a single source. Brings together terms and concepts from diverse areas (criminology, criminal justice, corrections, probation/parole, juvenile justice, and policing) with court cases related to criminal procedure, law enforcement, and the like.

Dictionary of American Penology. Coe Ref HV 9304 .W54 1996 A snapshot of the overall U.S. correctional system as of the mid-1990s, emphasizing trends and changes since the late 1970s.

Dictionary of Crime: Criminal Justice, Criminology, & Law Enforcement. Coe Ref HV 6017 .E5425 1992

Encyclopedia of American Prisons. Coe Ref HV 9471 .E425 1996 Compiled to provide an overall familiarity with the history and current operations of the American prison system.

Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice. Coe Ref HV 6017 .E52 2002 An interdisciplinary survey of "the nature and causes of criminal behavior...the prevention of crime, the punishment and treatment of offenders, the functioning of the institutions of criminal justice, and the bodies of law that define criminal behavior and govern the processes through which the criminal law is applied." (foreword) American in emphasis, with international comparisons.

Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment. Coe Ref HV 6017 .E524 2002 Has over 400 entries grouped into 13 general categories. Focused on the USA but also have coverage of other nations.

The Encyclopedia of Police Science. Coe Ref HV 7901 .E53 1995 A ready-reference tool to fill a void in the criminal justice literature by comprehensively covering the specialized field of policing and related law enforcement topics.

The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. Coe HV 6025 .O87 2002 (also have 1994 and 1997 editions). Intended to support teaching and research in the field. Consists of 32 commissioned essays on the state of the art, especially theoretical and methodological aspects. Has a predominantly British orientation.

Article Indexes:


Academic Search Premier
Criminal Justice Abstracts
National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts (NCJRS)

Electronic Journals:

[PURL:665http://www-lib.uwyo.edu/e-journal.cfm?subject=AJ&Go%21=Go%21[/PURL]

Government Documents:

Federal publications, agency web sites, and programs.

University of Wyoming Government Documents Library Web Page

Internet Resources:

This is a selective list of free web sites that have been evaluated for quality and usefulness to the field. Most contain numerous links to related sites, so they tend to serve as helpful starting points for locating additional relevant Internet resources.

	Cecil Greek's Criminal Justice Page. An excellent one-stop source of a large number of links to all types of criminal justice and law-related information ranging from general to specialized, scholarly to popular. An ideal starting point.
	National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. Provides free Internet access to federally funded criminal justice data collections. Also links to many other helpful sites, including federal, state, local, and international coverage from both government and privately sponsored sources--most of which provide their own useful links.
	National Criminal Justice Reference Service. The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is one of the world's most comprehensive sources of information on criminal justice and related fields. It is a collection of clearinghouses supporting all units of the U.S. Department of Justice plus such related agencies as the Office of National Drug Control Policy. A particular highlight is the inclusion of a database of bibliographic references and abstracts of hundreds of thousands of journal articles, books, research reports, program descriptions, dissertations, government documents, and audiovisual materials on criminal justice and law enforcement. This "abstracts database" is linked in the Article Indexes section above.
	The Corrections Connection. This commercial site bills itself as "the largest online resource for news & information in corrections." It links to numerous corrections-related resources and hosts the Web sites of such organizations as the American Correctional Association, the American Jail Association, and the National Juvenile Detention Association.