Research Guides: Criminal Justice: Articles / Databases

Databases for Criminal Justice and Sociology

Sage Journals This link opens in a new window
CONTENT: Browse journal titles from A-Z, by discipline or conduct a topic search in the fields of: Health Sciences, Life and Biomedical Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering, and Social Science and Humanities.

RESOURCE TYPES: Scholarly journal articles.

COVERAGE: Provides full-text access to 389 journals; updated monthly.
Sociology Collection This link opens in a new window
CONTENT: It provides information on the topics of culture and social structure, family and marriage, organizational sociology, history and theory of sociology, political sociology, poverty and homelessness, race and ethnicity, social change and economic development, social control, sociology of health and medicine, and the sociology of education, and more.

RESOURCE TYPES: Abstracts of journal articles, citations to book reviews, abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers and working papers.

COVERAGE: 1952 to the present, citations and abstracts from over 1,800 periodicals.
Proquest This link opens in a new window
CONTENT: Citations, abstracts, and full-text articles from thousands of news magazines, professional journals, leading newspapers, and popular publications. Subject specific database portions include: business, education, humanities, interdisciplinary, medical, news, psychology, biology, science, social science, and technology and more.

RESOURCE TYPES: Scholarly and popular articles from newspapers, magazines, and journals. Books are full-text in the fields of health and business.

COVERAGE: Covers over 13,000 periodicals/publications, divided by subject areas/databases to allow focus of searching. Dates differ for every periodical, most cover the current three years.
CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
A database of in-depth, authoritative reports on a full range of political and social-policy issues extending back to 1923. Each report is footnoted and includes an overview, background section, chronology, bibliography and debate-style pro-con feature, plus tools to study the evolution of the topic over time.
Sage Knowledge This link opens in a new window
SAGE Knowledge is home to an expansive range of SAGE eBook and eReference content alongside SAGE Video, containing over 5,100 titles. Content includes reference works, academic books, professional development titles and more. This cross-media platform allows users to search and browse over 10,000 items, video, book and reference titles within the Social Sciences.
Oxford University Press This link opens in a new window
Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO) is a vast and rapidly-expanding library, providing easy access to thousands of books across the world-renowned scholarly list of Oxford University Press (OUP). Spanning subjects across the humanities, social sciences, sciences, medicine, and law, OSO is an essential research resource for student, scholar, and academic alike, no matter what your subject specialty.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
CONTENT: Browse by journal title or discipline including: anthropology, art, art history, architecture, economics, ecology, film studies, folklore, history, mathematics, music, performing arts, philosophy, political science, religion, sociology, statistics, and many more.

RESOURCE TYPES: Scholarly journals and monographs.

COVERAGE: Over 1,000 scholarly journals and other scholarly content, from the earliest issues (many in the late 1800s) to within 3-5 years of current publication. Collections: Arts & Sciences I Collection, Arts & Sciences II Collection, Arts & Sciences III Collection, Arts & Sciences VII Collection, Nineteenth-Century Literature and The William and Mary Quarterly.

Key Journals

These are just a few of the excellent journals with relevant research available through Saint Francis University Library.

Interlibrary Loan

Interlibrary Loan for books, articles, and much more!

If we don't have it, we can probably get it for you!

Books - generally arrive within 7-10 business days

Articles - generally arrive within two business days. Sometimes the same day!!

CDs and DVDs - generally arrive within 7-10 business days

Interlibrary Loan

Peer-review? Refereed? Scholarly?

Peer-review in 3 Minutes

Video created by NCSU Libraries :: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/peerreview/

What does it mean when my professor wants me to use "scholarly articles"?

They want you to use articles that go beyond the basic type of information you might get in a newspaper or popular magazine (like, Newsweek or Popular Science).
Scholarly articles are where much of the work of the discipline gets done or directly reported.
- A scholarly Chemisty article may be a thirty page report detailing everything about an experiment that a group of scientists completed.
- A scholarly Literature article may be an analysis of a recent novel using a particular theory lens, such as feminist theory.
Scholarly articles are written for an audience that has an educational background in such topics.
- You may find scholarly articles difficult to read. Don't worry, that's part of you learning!

What does "peer-reviewed" or "refereed" mean?

These both refer to the same process that many scholarly articles undergo before publication.
The article is sent out to independent reviewers who critique the article. These reviewers are experts or well-experienced scholars/practitioners in the field.
They analyze the paper's research quality, its logical cohesiveness, the accuracy of its theoretical applications. Essentially, these peer reviewers help to make the article the best it can be, to ensure that the research is top notch.
A careful researcher (like you) cares to find the best, peer-reviewed scholarly articles for their research needs.

Want to be double-sure the journal you're using is "peer-reviewed"?

Then search for it in Ulrich's and if you see the referee jersey next to your journal... it is!

Ulrich's - Global Serials Directory This link opens in a new window
CONTENT: Provides the ISSN, publisher, language, subject, abstracting & indexing coverage, full-text database coverage, tables of contents, and reviews written by librarians for all periodicals. Useful in the identification of subject area publication requirements, follow the company URL to seek out manuscript submission procedures.

RESOURCE TYPES: Periodical types include: academic and scholarly journals, e-journals, peer-reviewed titles, popular magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and more.

COVERAGE: Covers over 300,000 periodicals, in 900 different subject areas.