Juvenile Delinquency Research Guide

Government Websites:

• Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
• National Criminal Justice Reference Service
• The National Juvenile Court Data Archive
  • The archive houses the automated records of cases handled by courts with juvenile jurisdiction.   
• Bureau of Justice Statistics
• Texas Juvenile Justice Department

Professional Associations & Organizations:

• Juvenile Justice Association of Texas
• National Partnership for Juvenile Services
• Coaliation for Juvenile Justice
• National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice
• National Center for Juvenile Justice 
  • NCJJ is the oldest juvenile justice research group in the United States, having conducted national and sub national studies on crime and delinquency since 1973

Most free websites will not provide current, peer reviewed research studies.  However, there are great primary sources, especially educational statistics available, as well as many non-profit/ policy/ think-tank papers.  Generally, you should use library databases to find your articles, and the web to supplement your arguments with statistics, demographic information, and reports.

Things to keep in mind when searching the web:

• Use websites only when appropriate and question their credibility. Remember, almost anyone can publish something online because it doesn't go through the same review process like books or articles. 
• Generally .gov, .edu, .org sites tend to be the most credible, though there are still exceptions. To limit your Google search to these domains, type in your search term followed by a colon with the domain name. Ex. population trends:.gov 
• When in doubt, ask your instructor if it’s okay to use a particular web source.