One of the major sources of criminal justice information is the United States Government The Justice Information Center at www.ncjrs.org is one of the most extensive sources of information. Providing access to full-text government documents and links to Web sites on corrections, courts, crime prevention, criminal justice statistics, juvenile justice and victims, this site is a resource from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, which is a collection of clearinghouses supporting the bureaus of the U.S. Department of Justice. Looking for Federal criminal justice statistics? Try www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs (the Bureau of Justice Statistics). Statistical information about sentencing, corrections and law enforcement are arranged by topic. Press releases are also available. Another important site is the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics (www.albany.edu/ sourcebook). This compilation is a secondary source of information that presents statistics gathered nationwidefrom government agencies, universities, public opinion polling firms, and research organizations. The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data at www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/index.html contains over 500 data collections. This site provides browsing and downloading access to most of its data and documentation. Another good strategy for finding criminal justice information is going to the websites of universities with a criminal justice program. The Lloyd Sealy Library of John Jay College of Criminal Justice (www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu), the State University of New York at Albany’s School of Criminal Justice (www.albany.edu/scj) and Cambridge University’s Institute of Criminology (www.law.cam.ac.uk/crim/iochpg.htm) link users to particularly worthwhile sites.

How to Locate State and International Information on the Net

A useful guide to official state and local Internet resources is State and Local Governments on the Net (go to www.piperinfo.com/state/states.html). Finding information is easy: browse an index of states or search by keyword across states. StateSearch (www.nasire.org/ss/index.html) is a service of the National Association of State Information Resource Executives; it is designed to serve as a topical clearinghouse to state information. At this site you may select criminal justice links to information offered by different states. The venerable Library of Congress maintains a resource page called State and Local Governments at lcweb.loc.gov/global/state. While providing links to the individual states, this site also connects the user to “State Maps” and “Meta Indexes for State and Local Government Information”. For international criminal justice information and statistics explore the United Nations Surveys of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (www.ifs.univie.ac.at/uncjin/mosaic/wcs.html). This address offers data from five World Crime Surveys covering 1970 to 1994. Information on prisons, prisoners, criminal justice expenditures, police, and courts is available.

For narrative information for over forty countries, consult the World Factbook of Criminal Justice Systems which is available at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ abstract/wfcj.htm. The U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base can be found at www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbnew.html contains statistical tables of socioeconomic and demographic data for all countries. The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics maintains a web page entitled International Justice Statistics (www.ojb.usdoj.gov/bjs/ijs.htm) providing links to datasets that are published on or are available to researchers worldwide. The datasets are grouped under the headings “The United Nations”, “Social Science Data Archives”, “International Web Sites”, and “National Archive of Criminal Justice Data.”

For More Information Visit the Library

There are many other valuable criminal justice web sites -- too many to list here! For more information and a detailed list of additional web sites please stop by the Burritt Library Reference Department and take a look at the book Criminal Justice Information: How to Find it, How to Use It (REF HV7419.5 C75 1998). Also check Criminal Justice Research in Libraries and on the Internet (REF Z5703.4 C73 N45 1997).

The CCSU Library Newsletter (ISSN 1086-0339) is published twice each year, once during the spring semester and once during the fall semester. It is edited by Joan G. Packer, Head Reference Librarian; the Managing Editor is Reference Librarian Nick Tomaiuolo.