Criminal Justice: Journals

When searching for journal articles through one of these journals or through one of the databases, here are some important strategies to keep in mind. 

Use Keywords

Keywords help focus your search on what you're looking for. 

Instead of this phrasing:  "What challenges do juveniles face in the criminal justice system?" 

Try: juvenile offenders AND challenges 

Boolean Operators

There are three Boolean operators - AND, OR and NOT. 

• AND helps narrow your search. Take the example from above:

juvenile offenders AND challenges

We tell the search to look for all articles that contain both of these phrases "juvenile offenders" AND "challenges". 

• OR helps broaden your search. We tell the search that we will accept both possibilities in our search results. 

Example: juvenile offenders OR juvenile delinquents

• NOT can help make your search more precise. If a result that is different than what you intended keeps dominating your search results, you can use NOT to remove it. 

Example: If you were interested in what other factors besides race contributed to juvenile offender sentencing, you could try:

juvenile offenders NOT race

Limiters

With each result page, there is a section on the right that gives you options to limit your results. You can select limiters like: 

• Full Text
• Type of information source (Academic Journals, eBooks, Dissertations/Theses, etc.)
• A specific journal
• Subject 
• Location