Research Guides: Criminology and Criminal Justice: Articles and Databases

Articles and Databases

Search the following databases to find relevant journal and magazine articles, reports, and dissertations. Find more databases at the Databases A-Z list.

SocINDEX with Full Text
SocINDEX with Full Text is the world's most comprehensive and highest quality sociology research database. The database features more than 2.1 million records with subject headings from a 20,000+ term sociological thesaurus designed by subject experts and expert lexicographers.

SocINDEX with Full Textcontains full text for more than 860 journals dating back to 1908. This database also includes full text for more than 830 books and monographs, and full text for over 16,800 conference papers.

On-Campus Link
Fusion
Fusion allows you to search, in one place, the majority of the library’s books, articles, videos, etc. It includes all the materials in our library catalog Ignacio, as well as the content of the majority of our many databases.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
Does Fusion include everything the library has?
No, but it includes so much of what the library has that it will almost always be a good place to start a search.

When would Fusion not make sense as the first place to search?
Some examples:

If you’re interested in finding only books, or a specific book title, then our library catalog Ignacio might be a more appropriate place to begin.
If you’re looking specifically for statistical data, or encyclopedia/dictionary entries, or images, it would be better to use databases devoted to those specific types of information.
If you're looking for a specific Journal title, you should use our Journal Finder.
I’m very proficient using the subject-specific databases in my field. Is there any reason I should use Fusion?
Because Fusion will have such broad coverage, it may locate relevant materials published in other fields that you wouldn’t otherwise find in a subject-specific database.

So then why would I want to choose a subject-specific database anymore—can I just use Fusion instead?
Fusion is not replacing any of our subject-specific databases. These databases offer valuable advanced searching capabilities tailored to their subject areas.

On-Campus Link
JSTOR
Full text of older issues of journals. Access includes Arts & Sciences I-XV, Business I Collection, Health & General Sciences Collection, and the Life Sciences Collection. To support online learning, JSTOR has made additional journal and primary source archival collections, 26 public health journals and over 6,000 articles related to COVID-19, openly accessible through June 30, 2022.

On-Campus Link
APA PsycInfo
APA PsycInfo is the American Psychological Association's renowned resource for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations. It is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health, and contains over 3 million citations and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s, with one of the highest DOI matching rates in the publishing industry. Ninety-nine percent of its content is peer-reviewed. Formerly called PsycINFO.

Included is information on the psychological aspects of related fields such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, technology, linguistics, anthropology, business, law and others. Journal coverage, which spans from the 1800s to the present, includes international material selected from around 2,500 periodicals in dozens of languages. APA PsycInfo is indexed with controlled vocabulary from APA's Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms.

On Campus Link
HeinOnline
HeinOnline is the world’s largest fully searchable, image-based government document and legal research database. It contains comprehensive coverage from inception of more than 2,300 scholarly journals; U.S. Statutory materials; all of the world’s constitutions; all U.S. treaties; collections of classic treatises and presidential documents; access to the full text of state and federal case law powered by Fastcase; and more.

On-Campus Link
NCJRS: National Criminal Justice Reference Service
Established in 1972, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is a federally funded resource offering justice and drug-related information to support research, policy, and program development worldwide.
Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective: 1908-1981
Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective: 1908-1981 is an archive index covering legal periodicals published in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand between 1908 and 1981. Topics include criminal law, federal law, international law, medical law and more.

On-Campus Link
PubMed
PubMed provides access to more than 23 million bibliographic citations primarily drawn from MEDLINE, as well as publisher-supplied citations, in-process and "ahead-of-print" citations.

Tutorials

PubMed Instructional Videos
PubMed Tutorial from the National Library of Medicine
Chicano Database
Chicano Database includes over 67,000 records from more than 2,400 journals and other resources including newspapers, books and book chapters. The database provides coverage dating back to the 1960s and selective indexing dating back to the early 1900s. Subject coverage includes art, bilingual education, education, labor, literature, mental health, law, poetry, politics and sociology.

On Campus Link
Education Source
Education Source is designed to meet the needs of education students, professionals and policy makers. The collection includes full text for more than 1,700 journals, 550 books and monographs, education-related conference papers, citations for over 4 million articles including book reviews and over 100,000 controlled and cross-referenced names of educational tests.

Coverage in Education Source spans all levels of education from early childhood to higher education and also includes educational specialties such as multilingual education, health education and testing. Subject matter includes Adult Education, Continuing Education, Distance Learning, Government Funding, Multicultural/Ethic Education, Social Issues, Student Counseling, Vocational Education as well as many others.

On-Campus Link
ERIC: Educational Resources Information Center
The ERIC database, the world's largest source of education information, contains more than a million abstracts of documents and journal articles on education research and practice. It also contains the complete text of more than 1600 ERIC Digests, two-page research syntheses, which are among the ERIC system's most popular offerings; approximately 100 new titles are produced each year.

Subject coverage of all aspects of educational research and resources, including: career, adult, vocational, technical, and teacher education; education of persons with handicaps, of the disadvantaged and gifted; early childhood education; junior colleges and higher education; reading and communication skills; languages and linguistics; education management; counseling and personnel services; library and information science; information resources; urban education; rural education and small schools; science, mathematics and environment; social studies and social sciences; tests, measurement and evaluation.

Journal literature corresponds to Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE) and report literature corresponds to Resources in Education (RIE).

You can access the ERIC database via the Internet through the National Library of Education (free public ERIC) or via the commercial vendor site provided by the library. The database is updated monthly, ensuring that the information you receive is timely and accurate.

On-Campus Link
Google Scholar
Articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Click "more" below to customize Google Scholar to access USF library journal subscriptions.

Customize Google Scholar to provide full-text links to journal articles available through Gleeson Library subscriptions:

If you are on campus, Google Scholar should recognize you as a USF user and link you to the full text.

If you are working from an off-campus location, you will need to manually activate USF's Full Text Finder in Google Scholar Library Links:

1. Go to the Google Scholar search page.
2. In the upper left corner of the page, press the button made of three horizontal lines to open a new menu.
3. Click "Settings."
4. Select "Library links" and search for "University of San Francisco."
5. Check "University of San Francisco – Full Text Finder" in the search results, then click Save.

When you search Google Scholar, you should now see "Full Text Finder" links to the right of your results. Click on these links to check if USF has access to your article.
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global
The most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, offering millions of works from thousands of universities. Full-text coverage spans from 1743 to the present, with citation coverage dating back to 1637.
CQ Researcher
CQ Researcher provides award winning in-depth coverage of the most important issues of the day. Our reports are written by experienced journalists, footnoted and professionally fact-checked.

Full-length articles include an overview, historical background, chronology, pro/con feature, plus resources for additional research. Graphics, photos and short "sidebar" features round out the reports. Shorter "Hot Topics" articles provide a solid introduction to subjects most in demand by students.

On-Campus Link

Newspaper Articles

Access World News
Through nearly 7000 news sources, find diverse global, local, regional, and national perspectives on topics related to controversial issues, the environment, health, education, science, the arts, literature, business, economics, criminal justice, and more.

Sources include a variety of current and retrospective news media: newspapers, newswires, broadcast transcripts, blogs, periodicals, and web-only content.

Also included are the following Access Modules: Business News, U.S. Newswires, Military, Government, and Defense, and Acceda Noticias. Content is easily searched and sorted through an intuitive, map-based interface.

Access World News includes many California News Sources including the current San Francisco Chronicle.

On Campus Link
Nexis Uni
Replaces LexisNexis Academic.

More than 15,000 news, business, and legal sources from LexisNexis—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.

National and regional newspapers, wire services, broadcast transcripts, international news, and non-English language sources.

U.S. Federal and state case law, codes, regulations, legal news, law reviews, and international legal information.

Shepard’s Citations for all U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1789.

Business news journals, company financial information, SEC filings and reports, and industry and market news.

On Campus Link
Ethnic NewsWatch
Ethnic NewsWatch covers 1990 to present and includes newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The publications offer both national and regional coverage

Ethnic NewsWatch is the only current database devoted to presenting multi-ethnic and multi-cultural publications in one resource. Coverage begins in 1990 and is updated daily with new content. Many of the titles are not found in any other aggregated resource.

Find Full-Text

If the full-text of an article is not available, click on to check options for finding the full-text, including requesting the article via Interlibrary Loan. Alternatively, you check if USF owns the journal by searching the Journal Finder by journal name. Learn how to use in this short video tutorial.

Find Articles Not at USF

If the library doesn't have access to the journal article you want, you can still get it through Interlibrary Loan. Use Illiad to request your items online. You may receive your item in anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. Be sure to start your research early!

Database Search Tips

Use Boolean operators connect your search words together to either narrow or broaden your set of results. The two basic boolean operators are: AND and OR.
- AND tells the database that ALL search terms must be present in the resulting records.
  Example: prisoners AND family
- OR increases your results, telling the database that ANY of your search terms can be present in the resulting records.
  Example: ex-convicts OR ex-offenders
Use database “limit” options as needed. Most databases offer these options to limit your results:
- to scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals
- by source type (magazines, newspapers, academic journals)
- by language (e.g., English)
Broaden a search by using a truncation symbol with a search term. Most databases use the (*) symbol. For example, prison* retrieves prison, prisons, prisoner, prisoners.
Use quotes around search words to force exact phrase searching. Example: "stand your ground"

This guide was first curated with care by Sherise Kimura, and is currently maintained by Nicky Andrews.

Criminology and Criminal Justice

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Database Search Tips