Clarviate publishes annual Journal Citation Reports, which list journals by field and "impact factor". Impact factor refers to the average number of times articles published in the past two years have been cited in the last year.
Some of the Criminology journals with the highest impact factors are:
To Find an Article from a Citation, click the link above and then click the Articles tab.
Welcome to the Criminology & Criminal Justice Guide! Criminology is the study of how crime affects society. It delves into the socio-economic and psychological factors that foster criminal behavior. It studies how the criminal justice system operates. Finally, it details how criminals are rehabilitated.
This guide is intended to be a starting point for students taking Criminology & Criminal Justice courses by providing information on how to obtain books/e-books, peer-reviewed articles, web resources, and citing help. Please do not hesitate to ask for help if you have any questions!
The following databases below will provide access to thousands of scholarly journal articles, conference papers and other similar research documents by keywords, author or other criteria. Click on the other tabs to see additional useful databases.
Search Tip: An article doesn't have to have the same thesis statement as your paper to be useful. Please read the abstract and/or evaluate enough of the article before you dismiss or decide to use the article as support for your own research.
This resource covers essential areas related to criminal justice and criminology. The increasing globalization of criminology is reflected in the database’s coverage of hundreds of journals from around the world.
Supports research on crime, as well as showing its impacts, implications, litigations, and crime trends. Includes correctional and law enforcement publications along with other necessary topics for those going into the Criminal Justice Field.
A valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multidisciplinary database with full-text peer-reviewed journal articles, monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
Access multidisciplinary research delivered with info on emerging trends, subject specific content, and analysis tools. Includes Emerging Sources Citation Index: 2005-present, the Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index, 1980-present.
Westlaw Campus Research contains the full text of court opinions, statutes, and regulations from state and federal governments. Westlaw Campus Research is powered by WestSearch, which dramatically improves searching and the ability to find the most relevant information quickly. Westlaw Campus Research is a premier research service for legal, news, and business-related information, making it a great resources for law, business, and criminal justice students.
Primary features include:
• Analytical sources like American Jurisprudence 2d
• American Law Reports
• Black's Law Dictionary
• 800+ law reviews and journals
• Primary law sources like USCA, CFR, Federal Register and all federal, state and Supreme Court cases
• Newspapers, magazines, trade journals, and company information
This database contains information on US law and government as well as constitutions from around the globe.
Links to Business and Legal Aspects of Sports and Entertainment (BLASE); Democracy in America; Gun Regulation and Legislation in America; History of Supreme Court Nominations; Immigration Law & Policy in the U.S.; and Reports of U.S. Presidential Commissions and Other Advisory Bodies: A Bibliographic Listing.
Use this database to search through more than 15,000 sources for U.S. and world news. Look up legal cases including U.S. Supreme Court decisions as old as 1790, find company information, state profiles, legal reviews, state legal research and more.
Offers information centered on the discipline of law and legal topics such as criminal justice, international law, federal law, organized crime, medical, labor & human resource law, ethics, the environment, and much more.
Coverage of humanities disciplines including history, language & literature, art & art history, education, philosophy, classical studies, and music. Also includes a digitized group of rare 19th and early 20th century American Art periodicals.
PSC has a worldwide focus reflecting the globalization of contemporary political discourse.
A comprehensive and high-quality sociology research database encompassing the broad spectrum of sociological study.
An expansive abstracting and indexing database devoted to peer-reviewed literature in the behavioral sciences and mental health.
The Military Database covers topics across all government and military branches, including international relations, political science, criminology, defense, aeronautics and space flight, communications, civil engineering, and more.
You can access our library resources by searching Google Scholar!
If you are on-campus and using either the Internet Explorer or Firefox browser, you will be automatically recognized as a member of the A&M-SA community. If you are off-campus or using the Google Chrome browser while on-campus, you will need to configure the settings for Google Scholar so that it knows you are a member of the A&M-SA community. Please see How to Set Up Google Scholar for Off-Campus Use for instructions.
Please keep in mind that not everything available through your library is cited on Google Scholar, so be sure to also use the library's online databases for your research needs. You can also ask your subject librarian for help!
You will need to enter your A&M-SA network username and password to get into the library's databases from off-campus. If you need assistance with this, please visit our Off-Campus Access page.
View more search tips and videos on the Research Help Tutorials tab on the guide.
What is a scholarly article?
Many professors require students to cite scholarly journal articles in their research papers. Scholarly journals contain articles written by scholars for scholars. Articles are reviewed by other scholars before they are published. This is called peer review.
Many databases allow you to restrict your searches to scholarly journals, sometimes called "refereed" or "peer reviewed" journals.
Types of scholarly articles
There are two different kinds of scholarly articles criminologists cite frequently in their work.
Take a look at a sample issue of the American Journal of Criminal Justice for some examples of research articles.
Take a look at a sample article from the Annual Review of Criminology as an example of review articles.
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