The Dewey Library Blog

Locating book reviews from any field of study can prove to be a challenge. Finding reviews of books written on a Criminal Justice topic are no exception. Equipped with the proper information, the process of finding and acquiring reviews of books written on Criminal Justice can become a manageable task.

The first step in the process is to identify the author, title, and date of publication for the book being reviewed. If any of this information first try Minerva, our online catalog. If it's not included in our catalgo, your best bet would be to search the If any of this information is missing, your best bet would be to search the WorldCat database with the information you already have to locate the necessary information.

Once you have identified the book whose reviews you are interested, you will need to know the proper databases to search for reviews.

Book Review Digest Retrospective, which covers 1905-1982, and Book Review Digest Plus, which covers 1983-Present.

Criminal Justice Abstracts covers 1968 - present and has a limited selection of criminal justice book reviews.

Sociological Abstracts covers 1952 - present indexes reviews for sociology, criminal jusice and other subjects.

Important: Be sure to select a database that provides coverage when the book and the subsequent book reviews were published. If the full text of the reviews are not available directly through the database, print out or copy the complete citation of each review, including the journal title, volume number, and page numbers.

Once you have the citation information for the desired reviews, search the journal title in the Journal Finder, to determine if it is owned by the University Libraries (go to the libraries' main website and click "Journal Finder" on the left) . If you discover that the University Libraries do not own the review source, take a moment to fill out an Interlibrary Loan request. Within a short period of time, usually a week or less, the full text of the review will be sent to your email account.

Criminal Justice journals subscribed to by Dewey Library that feature book reviews include:
Criminal Law Bulletin: Dewey Library / Periodicals K 3 R5
Criminal Justice Ethics: Dewey Library / Periodicals HV 7231 C75
Justice Quarterly: Dewey Library / Periodicals HV 7231 J88X

For more information or assistance in finding book reviews for Criminal Justice topics, please contact our Bibliographer for Criminal Justice, Mary Jane Brustman. She can be reached by email at mbrustman@uamail.albany.edu or by calling 442-3517.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nationally recognized – and fascinating-- research in criminal justice takes place in…..DRAPER HALL!! The School of Criminal Justice is home to the Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center. The center was founded in 1972 by Professor Michael Hindelang of the University at Albany's School of Criminal Justice. In 1982, after his untimely death, it was renamed the Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center.

Major projects at the center focus on incarceration and life outcomes, juries in capital cases, the Capital Punishment Research Initiative (with associated archives at the University Libraries), adolescent work and crime, reintegrating institutionalized youth, intergenerational transmission of antisocial behavior, collaborative crime analysis with New York State cities and localities, information for evidence based practice with youth and their families, and utilization of criminal justice statistics. The last project produces the Sourcebook Online, the key national source for criminal justice statistics. In the past 30 years, the center has provided the opportunity for more than 100 graduate students to participate in research and has awarded fellowships to doctoral students.

Research from the Hindelang center may be used directly in policy decision-making or disseminated through publications and colloquia. Many of these publications are available at Dewey Library (Hint: Ask for assistance at the Reference Desk).

If you are interested in more help with Criminal Justice Research, contact Mary Jane Brustman, our Criminal Justice Bibliographer. She can be contacted by email at mbrustman@uamail.albany.edu, or by phone 442-3540.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For some helpful pointers on doing criminal justice research, go to the My Research Subject on the left side of the University Libraries’ main web page. Selecting “Criminal Justice” will display some useful places to start your research.
•To search for journal articles, check out the list of Criminal Justice databases by clicking on Databases and Other Electronic Resources.
•Looking for websites with authority and high quality information? Check out Internet Resources for Criminal Justice.
•Criminal Justice: A Guide to Information Sources is a guide to help you find information resources for definitions, encyclopedias, legal research, statistics, and research guides.
•Resources for statistics can be found both in print at Dewey and online. Some great print resources include the Statistical Abstract of the United States, Statistical Handbook on Violence in America, and Crime State Rankings. The Criminal Justice Guide to Information Sources – Finding Statistics page provides call numbers for these and other print resources, as well as links to online resources.
•Check out the Criminal Justice Research Tutorial to test your knowledge on Criminal Justice research.

You may also be interested in archival and rare materials in our Special Collections department which provide criminal justice and prisons information. Also in Special Collections is the National Death Penalty Archive.

For help and additional information, contact the Criminal Justice Bibliographer Mary Jane Brustman at 442-3540 or email her: mbrustman@uamail.albany.edu.

Blog post created by Matthew Laudicina

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you enjoy watching TV shows such as CSI, Law and Order and Cold Case, may we suggest the following book:
Round Up the Usual Suspects: Criminal Investigation in Law & Order, Cold Case and CSI/ by Raymond Ruble [ Dewey HV8073 R79 2009]

Ruble’s book explores these three television series, as well as Boomtown and Without a Trace, and the differences in how they get the answer to those crucial crime questions: Who did it, why and how? Law and Order follows a more legal structure in solving a crime case while CSI introduces the viewing audience to forensic science, a cocktail of biology, chemistry and physics lab investigating. Ruble takes each show and analyzes their different crime-solving tactics, emphasizing these shows capture audiences for several seasons. Crime shows have always been radically successful on American television and Ruble demonstrates how viewers are even more hooked on today’s television crime shows than ever.

Interested in reading this title? Find it at the Dewey library on the New Books shelf, located to the right of the color printer.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Criminal Justice students interested in the research your faculty are doing, should check out the Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center . Here you can find out about all of the current research center projects, independent research projects, and completed research center projects as well as a link to display the School of Criminal Justice alumni dissertations.

Some of the current projects are accomplishing notable work. For example, the Capital Punishment Research Initiative (National Death Penalty Archive) with James Acker and Charles Lanier as Project Co-Directors, and the Rochester Youth Development Study with Terence Thornberry as Project Director and Marvin Krohn, Alan Lizotte, and Shawn Bushway as Project Co-Directors are two high profile projects with national recognition.

To learn more about publications of a Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center project— for example, the Rochester Youth Development Study:

Select the appropriate link on the Hidelang Criminal Justice Research Center page. In this case, http://www.albany.edu/hindelang/youth_study.html. The page appears containing the names of the Project Director and Project Co-Directors, a brief summary describing the work that they do, the projects and sponsoring agencies, a link to their publications, a list of the staff and office locations as well as appropriate contact information.

To read about the work this project has accomplished so far, select the “Publications” link in the middle of the page. The Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) Publication page appears. This page contains a list of the books, articles and chapters written by members of the RYDS project displayed by year of publication.

To see if we have a copy in our library of the following article, for example:
Ireland, T. O., Smith, C. A., and Thornberry, T. P. (2002). Developmental issues in the impact of child maltreatment on later delinquency and drug use. Criminology, 40(2), 359-399.

First we need to see if we have the journal Criminology in our library. From the library’s main web page , in the left hand column select “Minerva – Library Catalog”. On the “Basic Search page” select the “Journals” tab in the middle of the page. Enter Criminology in the field in the middle of the screen. “Search Type:” field will default to “Title begins with… (drop initial article)”. On the results page, select the second link to display our record for this journal. To see if we have the year, volume, and issue of this journal that we need, select the “Availability” link. You will see that we have Volume 40, Issue 2 for this journal in both print and online.

To find books you will want to search “Full Catalog” in Minerva. Note that if you are searching by title you will have to select “Title begins with….”

A search of “Databases & Indexes” can be used to bring up newer articles or other articles on the topic. Note that there is a specific list of recommended databases for criminal justice when you go to http://library.albany.edu/ and mouseover on “Databases & Indexes.” Generally you will want to start with the database Criminal Justice Abstracts, when looking for articles, or NCJRS Abstracts Database when looking for reports. When looking for very recent articles EBSCO Academic Premier Database is often an excellent supplement to the major criminal justice databases. Our search retrieved one very recent article on RYDS: Krohn, M.D., Hall, G.P. and Lizotte (2009), A.J. Family transitions and later delinquency and drug use. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 38(3), 466-480.

For detailed information on how to select and use databases to find articles, books, and reports consult our Criminal Justice Research Tutorial . And feel free to contact Criminal Justice Bibliographer Mary Jane Brustman by email mbrustman@uamail.albany.edu or by phone 442-3540.

Blog post created by Judith Mueller

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you a Criminal Justice student who is interested in learning more about what you can do with your degree, look no further. With a degree in criminal justice you can work in a number of different occupations. Some occupations require additional studying. A few are as follows:

• Law Enforcement Administration


• Correctional Administration


• Research and Teaching


• Lawyer


• Paralegal


• Corrections Officer


• Judge


• Police, Detective, FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshal, INS, Customs Inspector


• Private Detective, Investigator


• Probation Officer


• Court Reporter

Professional associations are very good places to look for information about different careers. There are many different associations for the various criminal justice careers. A few associations are as follows:

• Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (http://www.acjs.org/)


• American Academy of Forensic Sciences (http://www.aafs.org/)


• American Correctional Association (http://www.aca.org/)


• National Association of Police Organizations (http://www.napo.org/)


• New York State Probation Officers Association (http://www.nyspoa.com/)


• New York State Defenders Association (http://www.nysda.org/)

Both the University Library and Dewey Library have a number of excellent reference books that might provide you with some helpful career guidance:

• Criminal Justice and Criminology : a career guide to local, state, federal and academic positions by James F. Anderson, Nancie Jean Mangels, and Laronistine Dyson – Dewey Library / HV 9950 A54X 2003


• Federal Law Enforcement Careers : profiles of 250 high-powered positions and tactics for getting hired by Thomas H. Ackerman – University Library / Reference: HF 5381 A3544X 2006


• FBI Careers : the ultimate guide to landing a job as one of America’s finest by Thomas H. Ackerman – University Library / Reference: HF 5381 A354X 2006


• Opportunities in Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Careers by James Stinchcomb – University Library / Reference: HF 5381 S86X 2003


• Great Jobs for Criminal Justice Majors by Stephen Lambert and Debra Regan – University Library / Reference: HF 5381 L2537X 2001


• Career Opportunities in Forensic Science by Susan Echaore-McDavid and Richard A. McDavid – University Library / Reference: HF 5381 E62X 2008

For more information about Criminal Justice careers, see the School of Criminal Justice’s web page Careers in Criminal Justice. When you are ready to begin searching for a job in a particular field, see the School of Criminal Justice’s don't forget to look at their job search strategies.

If you have any questions about researching Criminal Justice careers, you can also contact Mary Jane Brustman, our subject specialist for Criminal Justice. Feel free to contact her at mbrustman@uamail.albany.edu, or by phone at 442-3517.

Blog post created by Judith Mueller

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you are doing research in criminal justice, you might want to check out the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) database . This database “is the world’s largest archive of digital social science data.” It is a part of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.. ICPSR’s mission is to acquire, preserve, and distribute original data as well as to provide training in its analysis. Since the University at Albany is a member of ICPSR, most of the files in the archive are free to download. This data is in a form that can be used with statistical software such as SAS, SPSS, and Stata. If you are a researcher willing to let others access your data, you can contribute your data to ICPSR as well. ICPSR also contains data in the fields of sociology, political science, demography, history, economics, gerontology, public health, education, and international relations.

You can access the ICPSR database from the Databases & Indexes page by either typing in “ICPSR” in the “Find a database” field or by selecting the letter “I” in the “Browse by database title” field.
The data from ICPSR can also be accessed from National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) which is also sponsored by the University at Michigan. This database is funded by ICPSR, as well as the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the National Institute of Justice.

To access the data of interest to criminal justice students, on the ICPSR home page display the “Our Research” menu at the top of the screen and select : Research Projects. Then display the menu in the “Show me all items related to : field and select “Criminology and Criminal Justice” and select the “Go” button.

The following projects are displayed:
• CrimeStat –is a spatial statistics program for the analysis of crime incident locations.( http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/CRIMESTAT/)
• Minority Data Resource Center (MDRC) – is an archive that provides data resources for the comparative analysis of issues affecting racial and ethnic minority populations in the United States. (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/MDRC/)
• National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) – contains over 700 data collections related to criminal justice. (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/)
• Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) – is a large scale, interdisciplinary study of how families, schools, and neighborhoods affect child and adolescent development.( http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/PHDCN/)
• Terrorism & Preparedness Data Resource Center (TPDRC) – archives and distributes data collected by government agencies, non-governmental agencies, and researchers about the nature of domestic and international terrorism incidents, organizations, perpetrators, and victims. (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/TPDRC/)

The ICPSR contact here at the University at Albany Libraries is the librarian Lorre Smith. Earlier this month she held two classes that gave a brief introduction to ICPSR, how to search the archives, and how to download data. If you missed these classes and would like some help with learning more about ICPSR, feel free to contact Lorre Smith in the Science Library by phone (437-3946) or by email (lsmith@uamail.albany.edu).

Blog post created by Judith Mueller

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The University at Albany’s libraries and the Capital Punishment Research Initiative, part of our School of Criminal Justice, jointly established the National Death Penalty Archive (NDPA) in August of 2005. This collection is housed in the M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives located in the Science Library. This archive is the first of its kind in the nation that is exclusively dedicated to the history of the death penalty in the United States. The archive specializes in collecting primary source documents (letters, reports, unpublished writings, personal papers, and other related materials) written and/or owned by anyone touched by the death penalty (death penalty activists, lawyers, family members, etc.) The archive also includes interviews featuring death penalty activists and professionals involved in death penalty abolition efforts and related work.

In the University Libraries we have other sources of information on the death penalty with the Library of Congress subject heading of the Death Penalty. We also have access to any available government documents electronically through the NCJRS (National Criminal Justice Reference Service) Abstracts database and the Bureau of Justice Statistics website.

Included in our collection are books written by a few of the leading death penalty experts. These experts and their books include:

• Wounds That do not Bind: Victim-Based Perspectives on the Death Penalty edited by our own CPRI Professor James Acker along with David R. Karp and Jarrett B. Warshaw can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8694 W68 2006


• America’s Experiment with Capital Punishment: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of the Ultimate Penal Sanction by our own James Acker and Hindeland Center volunteer staff associate Charles Lanier, and Robert M. Bohm can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8699 U5 A746 1998


• Killing as Punishment: Reflection on the Death Penalty in America by Hugo Adam Bedau can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8699 U5 B43 2004


• Capital Punishment Clemency Petitions by William Bowers can be found in the Special Collections/ Archives manuscript collection MSS APAP-214


• Condemned : Inside the Sing Sing Death House by Scott Christianson can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8699 U5 C4 2000


• The Death Penalty: An American History by Stuart Banner can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8699 U 5 B367 2002


• Deathquest II: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Capital Punishment in the United States by Robert M. Bohm can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8699 U5 B65 2003


• America without the Death Penalty: States Leading the Way by John F. Galliher can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8699 U5 G35 2002


• Dead Man Walking by Helen Prejean can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8699 U5 P74 1993


• The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law by William A. Schabas can be found at Dewey Library / K 5104 S33 2002


• A Comparative Analysis of Capital Punishment: Statues, Policies, Frequencies and Public Attitudes the World Over by Rita J. Simon and Dagny A. Blaskowich can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8699 S55 2002


• The Hangman’s Knot: Lynching, Legal Execution, and America’s Struggle with the Death Penalty by Eliza Steelwater can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8699 U5 S72 2003


• The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment by Franklin E. Zimring can be found at Dewey Library / HV 8699 U5 Z563 2003

If you are interested in research on the death penalty or other criminal justice topics, please make an appointment with Mary Jane Brustman, our Bibliographer for Criminal Justice. She can be reached at 442-3517 or by e-mail at mbrustman@uamail.albany.edu.

Blog post created by Judith Mueller

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When starting a new research project it helps to get ideas for a topic or to find definitions and summary information on this topic when beginning your research. Good places to look for this information are subject-specific dictionaries and encyclopedias. Encyclopedias are also good places to find out about the major scholars in a particular field as well as any major writings on the subjects. Luckily for those studying criminal justice, Dewey Library has two exceptional encyclopedias on the subject: the Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice and the Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment.

The current edition of the Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice is the second edition. This edition has been largely rewritten from the first edition. The essays were written by respected scholars and include a list of related topics as well as a bibliography. Many of the essays also include a list of leading court cases. Although the focus is on the United States there are a number of essays that deal with international issues. This encyclopedia also includes a glossary, a legal index containing a table of cases and other cited legal documents, as well as a general index for all four volumes.

The Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice can be found with the reference books upstairs in Dewey Library at Reference HV 6017 E52 2002. It also can be found online.

The Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment is a new reference source. This encyclopedia comes in four volumes with 430 signed essays. Each essay also includes a list of related topics as well as a section suggesting sources for further reading. This reference source is written in a manner that makes it easy to browse and useful for the beginning student of criminal justice.

Another useful aspect to this reference source is that each volume has its own appendix. The topics contained in these four appendices are: 'Careers in Criminal Justice', 'Web Resources', 'Professional and Scholarly Organizations', and a 'Selected Bibliography'. The fourth volume also contains a chronology of events in criminal justice from 1795 B.C.E. to the present.

In summary, the Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice is focused more on criminology (the study of crime as a social phenomenon) while the Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment is more focused on criminal justice (the study of all crime and societies reaction to it). As such, the Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment is more practical and useful for the beginning student while the Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice is more theoretical and useful for the advanced student.

So, when searching for ideas or for a place to start your research in criminal justice, make your first stop be one or both of the above encyclopedias.

Blog post created by Judith Mueller

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The University at Albany Libraries subscribe to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS). NCJRS provides a comprehensive bibliographic database that is federally funded and contains justice and abuse information from many different government agencies and organizations. This database contains summaries of the more than 200,000 criminal justice, juvenile justice, and substance abuse resources that make up the NCJRS Library collection.

You can access this database by first going to the library’s Databases & Indexes page and selecting ‘N’. From here you can choose to use NCJRS using either the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) interface or by going directly to the US Department of Justice web site. Either way, you have access to many resources including federal, state, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, and unpublished research produced since 1975.

If you need more help with Criminal Justice research, stop by the reference desk or contact Mary Jane Brustman (mbrustman@uamail.albany.edu) to set up an appointment.

Blog post created by Judith Mueller

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For some helpful pointers on doing criminal justice research, go to the My Research Subject…field on the right hand side of the library’s main web page. Select Criminal Justice to display some useful places to start your research.

• When searching for journal articles, check out the list of databases by clicking on the Databases and Other Electronic Resources link.
• When needing websites with authority and high quality information, check out the Internet Resources for Criminal Justice link.
• When needing help finding information sources for definitions, encyclopedias, statistics, legal research, and research guides, check out the Criminal Justice: A Guide to Information Sources link.
• Want to test your knowledge on criminal justice research, check out the Criminal Justice Research Tutorial link.
• Want to know more about what is in our special collections of criminal justice and prisons information, and the national death penalty archive, check out the Special Collections and Archives at the University Libraries link.

• For help and additional information, contact the Criminal Justice Bibliographer Mary Jane Brustman at 442-3517 or email her: mbrustman@uamail.albany.edu.

  Blog Post Created by Judith O. Mueller
  

  Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is a comprehensive bibliographic database funded by the federal government. The University at Albany Libraries now subscribes to this database through the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) platform.

This resource covers roughly 197,000 criminal justice publications. The most robust aspect of NCJRS is its collection of reports from federal, state, and local governments and organizations. The database coverage runs from 1972 to the present.

NCJRS access is available from the library Databases and Indexes page. If you use NCJRS, let us know your thoughts about the CSA platform. We welcome your comments –whether made on this blog or directly to a librarian.

Are you looking for tips to search more effectively? Do you have other research questions? You can contact the Reference Desk (stop by, phone 442-3691, send an e-mail). For questions specific to Criminal Justice Research, contact Mary Jane Brustman to set up an appointment.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

LIbrarians who are Subject Specialsts here at UAlbany have created online guides, to help you get the "lay of the land" with regard to key library resources for your academic discipline. These guides are found on the sidebar of our Dewey pages, under the heading: My Research Subject . You will also find them in the pull-down menu of the UA Libraries' main page .

Bibliographer (also the Head of Dewey) Mary Jane Brustman has updated the Subject Guides for Social Welfare and Criminal Justice.

The guides now include information about resources relevant resources in our Special Collections Department. For example, Special Collections has an archive of materials from Neighborhood and Community Associations, which may be useful for Social Welfare researchers; and The National Death Penalty Archive, of interest to some Criminal Justice researchers.

In addition to a slightly redesigned format (e.g., the guides now display an image of a recently published work by departmental faculty), the Social Welfare and Criminal Justice Subject Guides also have a "mini-update" at the bottom listing upcoming classes and library events that pertain to the subject.

We hope you'll take a look at the Subject Guides and provide us wiith feedback -- how helpful are these guides? What can we do to make them more useful? Our purpose is to make the library easier for you to use, so we welcome your opinions.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mary Jane Brustman and Richard Irving were contributors to the recently published reference series Resources for College Libraries. This seven-volume set offers a core collection of hand-selected titles in 58 curriculum-specific subject areas. The purpose of this reference is to assist academic librarians with the selection of materials in their subject areas. Dick served as a bibliographer for the Criminal Justice section (i.e., he selected which resources would be included) and Mary Jane was the editor of that chapter.

If you are interested in perusing Resources for College Libraries, it may be found in the Dewey Reference section, call number REF Z 1039 C65 R35X 2006.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Criminal Justice Abstracts now contains fulltext articles from 17 major research journals.

With the University Libraries’ subscription to Criminology:a Sage Full-Text Collection, articles from Crime and Delinquency, Homicide Studies, Police Quarterly, Theoretical Criminology, and other journals published by Sage Publications are available as PDF files within the Criminal Justice Abstracts database.

Access to Criminal Justice Abstracts is available through the Database Finder.

For assistance with searching this database, or other criminal justice research, contact Mary Jane Brustman.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Title: Punishment in America: A Reference Handbook.
Author: Cyndi Banks
Publication information: (2005) Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, Inc.
Dewey Location: REF HV 9466 B35 2005

The idea of punishing people in our society raises many questions. Our first Reference Resource begins to answer such questions as:

“Why should offenders be punished at all? How did punishment originate, and what should be its purpose? Howe does society decide what are the most appropriate ways to punish and how have these methods of punishment changed over time and why? Do we punish because we believe in retribution, or do we just think it is better to lock up all criminals and incapacitate them so they cannot reoffend? ”

The book is organized into several sections. The first is a section titled: “The History of Punishment in America,” which discusses: the use of corporal punishment, the growth of the penitentiary, reformatories, and the movement toward rehabilitation and community service. Another section, “Problems, Controversies and Solutions,” discusses major policy issues surrounding punishment, such as: gender issues, capital punishment, white collar crime, and privatization of prisons. The global perspective is touched upon, and a chronology of major events in the history of punishment is provided. Very brief, one paragraph biographical sketches of notables who influenced our concept of punishment in America include: John Augustus, Alexis de Tocqueville, Thomas Eddy and others. A “Facts and Data” section gives information on the prison population, number of sex offenders, incarceration rates, and death penalty statistics. In addition, there is a section providing agencies and organizations that deal with this topic, as well as a bibliography of print and non-print resources.

The heart and soul of this book is the section providing the history of punishment in America, and it is a good resource to get the “big picture” on this important topic. This background information may be helpful to provide the context for an issue that is being researched or possibly help a researcher focus from a broad concept to a research thesis.

You will find this book in the Reference Section of the Dewey Library.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)