Criminal Justice

Some of the examples and suggestions on this page may help you when searching for criminal justice-related information in library databases.

If you get too few sources...

Think of synonyms.

You tried: teen

Try: teenager, teenagers, adolescent, juvenile, youngster, "young adult"

Use truncation (? or *) for more word endings.

You tried: crime

Try: crim? or crim*

(This will look for crime, criminal, criminality, criminology,and other words that begin with CRIM.)

Don't use terms that are too specific.

You tried: embezzlement AND Kentucky

Try: white collar crime AND Kentucky

embezzlement AND United States 

white collar crime AND United States

You get too many sources:

Use AND to separate terms.

You tried: child abuse Kentucky prison

Try: child abuse AND Kentucky AND prison

Use quotation marks to search words together.

You tried: motor vehicle theft

Try: "motor vehicle theft"

This will look for the words motor vehicle theft all together in that order, as a phrase, instead of finding each word separately.

Don't use terms that are too broad.

You tried: criminal behavior

Try: "criminal behavior" AND "at-risk youth"