Criminology and Criminal Justice

Databases and websites for articles, books and statistics on criminal justice

Key Databases

Use these indexes and databases to find articles in both professional and scholarly journals. An article that is not available in full text can be requested by clicking on the Get It For Me button button.

Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Provides full text for 3,400 publications, including Criminology and Public Policy, Legal and Criminological Psychology, Journal of Addictions and Offender Counseling, Federal Probation, Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, Crime and Delinquency, and International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology.

American Prison Newspapers 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside

Criminal Justice Database (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
This database provides to articles in nearly 60 criminal justice journals and newsletters and article abstracts for an additional 140 periodicals.
Criminal Justice Abstracts (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts journal articles in criminology and related disciplines from 1968 to the present. Includes extensive coverage of books as well as reports from government and non-government agencies. Updated quarterly.
Criminology: A Sage Full-text Collection This link opens in a new window
Provides articles from a number of journals on topics in criminology.
Chronicle of Higher Education This link opens in a new window
No. 1 source of news, information, and job opportunities for college and university community. Contains full content of current issue; essays, daily news and advice columns; archived issues since 1989 searchable by keyword; discussion forums; salary databases; and data from the Almanac of Higher Education. Register to receive RSS feeds or email newsletters. Updated daily.
data.census.gov (Explore Census Data) This link opens in a new window
U.S. Census Bureau’s new platform to access detailed tables and maps for population, housing, economic, and geographic data from the Census of Population and Housing, Economic Census, American Community Survey, and more. Users can generate simple visualizations, extract reports, and explore census data by theme or topic. data.census.gov is the primary way to access Census Bureau data, including upcoming releases from the 2018 American Community Survey, 2017 Economic Census, 2020 Census and more.
data.census.gov replaces American FactFinder, which was retired.
• Access census.data.gov tutorials.
• Read about the transition from American FactFinder to data.census.gov.
FORENSICnetBASE/LawENFORCEMENTnetBASE This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to over 150 forensic and criminal justice reference works.
Hein Online: Civil Rights and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
Containing publications from the Commission on Civil Rights, legislative histories on landmark legislation, briefs from relevant U.S. Supreme Court cases, and more, this database covers civil rights in the United States as their legal protections and definitions are expanded to cover more and more Americans.
Hein Online: Gun Regulation and Legislation in America This link opens in a new window
This timely database brings together essential periodicals, compiled legislative histories, CRS reports, Congressional hearings, United States Supreme Court briefs, monographs, and other related materials on the difficult and controversial topic of regulating firearms in the United States. It also includes an extensive bibliography and a balanced selection of external resources to further research this subject.
Hein Online: Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window
Includes all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world, as well as materials on free African-Americans in the colonies and the U.S. before 1870. Search the entire database or browse by slavery statutes (state and federal), judicial cases, scholarly articles, e-books, bibliography, and external links.

Justice and Public Safety: Legislative Budget Board:
Includes "Adult and Juvenile Correctional Populations: Monthly Report" and "Statewide Criminal and Juvenile Justice Recidivism and Revocation Rates"

Legal Collection (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Full text access to over 400 law journals for information on current issues, studies, and legal trends.
NAACP Papers (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Covers 1909-1972. Digitized primary source material from the NAACP. Six modules containing nearly two million pages document the NAACP’s work on behalf of civil rights, including the fight for voting rights and campaigns against segregated education, discrimination and segregation in public places, residential discrimination, discrimination in the workplace and the armed forces, and the campaign against lynching, among others. Also included are the NAACP’s national organizational records, annual conferences, major speeches, regional branch records, and Legal Department files. Use Advanced Search for keyword searching or use the timeline to find records of significant events.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) This link opens in a new window
A free web database that indexes 160,000 journal articles, about 7,000 full text. There are mainly government publications, dating from 1966 to the present.
Nexis Uni (LexisNexis) This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) provides full text access to 15,000 news, business and legal sources including U.S. Federal and State case law, statutes and regulations; law journals; U.S. and international news; and company and industry financial information. Create a free Nexis Uni profile in order to access personal folders, alerts, and a collaborative workspace. Updated daily.

Oxford Bibliographies Online: Criminology
Contains recommendations for scholarship at all levels, whether encyclopedias and textbooks or journal articles and primary sources. Bibliographic essays and annotated citations on each topic. Peer-reviewed, selective, rather than exhaustive content chosen by experts.

Oxford Handbooks Online This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to numerous Oxford Handbooks for a variety of topics. Each handbook offers a critical survey of the current state of scholarship in a particular field of study. Individual articles review key issues and major debates, providing an in-depth overview of the field.
Praeger Security International Online This link opens in a new window
Provides access to a collection of materials related to security and terrorism, covering topics such as immigration and border control, disaster response, transportation security, counterinsurgency, weapons of mass destruction, and energy and security. Includes over 600 e-books published by Praeger Security International, commentaries by scholars and field experts, and over 1,000 primary documents.
ProQuest This link opens in a new window
Provides journal and newspaper articles across all subject areas.
PsycINFO (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Covers professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines. Contains over two million citations and summaries of articles from journals, books, book chapters, dissertations, and technical reports. Some full-text.
Sage Research Methods Online This link opens in a new window
Contains content on research methods from books, journals and reference sources; research methods videos; tutorials; case studies showing how research methods are applied; and practice datasets from actual research. Researchers can explore methods concepts to help them design research projects, understand particular methods or identify a new method, conduct their research, and write up their findings. Since SRMO focuses on methodology rather than disciplines, it can be used across the social sciences, health sciences, and more. Includes entire "Little Green Book" (quantitative research) and "Little Blue Book" (qualitative research) series.
Social Services Abstracts (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Focuses on sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavior sciences.
Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Focuses on sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences, indexing and abstracting thousands of titles including journals, conference papers, books, and dissertations.
USA.gov This link opens in a new window
USA.gov is the U.S. government's official web portal to all federal, state, and local government web resources and services, as well as those of cross-government agencies and tribal governments. Provides access to over 100,000 government websites. Search the official Spanish language web portal of the U.S. Government at USAGov en español . For similar resources, see also govinfo and GPO Monthly Catalog.

U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Reports & Testimonies
An independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress. Often called the "congressional watchdog." GAO investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars.

Search Library QuickSearch

Use Library Quick Search to search for books, articles, videos across many databases at once.

Search Google Scholar

Use Google Scholar to search for scholarly papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports from many disciplines. Results come from a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, and universities, as well as scholarly articles from the Web. Google Scholar provides direct linking to full text content in many UTSA Libraries' subscription databases.

Sample Keyword Searches

Find Items By	Search Examples
advanced keyword	"criminal behavior" and biology "criminal behavior" and (city or cities or urban) "restorative justice" and "domestic violence" "incarcerated parents"
author (use advanced search)	Walens Susann
LC Subject Heading	Criminal Law Prison Administration United States
book or journal title	Punishment & Society Justice Quarterly Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Trial Databases

Colonial Caribbean This link opens in a new window
Digital primary sources from the Colonial Office cover British governance of 25 islands in the Caribbean over the course of three centuries. Traces the rise and decline of the slave trade, from the regular trade and shipping of enslaved peoples, to the rise of the abolition movement and its impact on the government of the islands. Topics include estate ownership, plantation governance and labor, finance and economy, mutiny and piracy, uprisings and revolts, and more. Covers 1624-1849.

Note: Trial access to this resource will end on August 1, 2022.
Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
A digital collection of primary sources including original manuscripts, pamphlets, books, paintings, maps and images documenting a variety of slave experiences, resistance, and post-Emancipation Proclamation struggles. Subjects include slavery in the early Americas, African coast, the Middle Passage, abolition, Free Black settlements, slavery and the Islamic world, and more. Covers 1490 - 2007.

Note: Trial access to this resource will end on Aug 1, 2022.

Feel free to send feedback to me at: rita.wilson@utsa.edu