About this guide
This guide is designed to help you complete your CRJ245 papers. You have an assignment to use two criminological theories from the list below to explain the actions of a person who committed a crime. The crime can be a current or a historical crime. Be sure to choose an actual crime that was committed and has an identifiable suspect.
- Rational Choice Theory
- Labeling Theories
- Strain Theory
- Behavior Theory
- Social Conflict Theory
- Frustration-Aggression Theory
- Constitutional Theories
- Reaction Formation Theory
Your paper must include a research article on one of the theories. This guide will help you efficiently locate research articles in criminology.
Paul Bond
Databases
You can find databases by going to the Articles by Subject link on the library home page. You will see a link for databases for Criminal Justice and Emergency Services there. Criminology is not the same thing as Criminal Justice, however, so you should also look under Social Science as well. These are some recommended databases to use:
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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TIP: Use Advanced Search, and use the Journal Filter to limit to Criminology & Criminal Justice. - Gale OneFile: Criminal Justice This link opens in a new window
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TIP: On your Search Results page, click on the link for Academic Journals. - Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window
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This full-text resource provides access to a wide assortment of the most important English-language social science journals. Social Sciences Full Text includes full-text articles from hundreds of journals, covering the latest concepts, theories and methods from both applied and theoretical aspects of the social sciences. - Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
This multi-disciplinary database covers magazines, scholarly journals, and newspapers and is a good place to start for any subject.
If you are searching for a crime you may wish to search through newspaper stories that covered the incident. Use the link below to search many newspapers at once.
Newspaper Search Link: https://suny-bcc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/npsearch?vid=01SUNY_BCC:01SUNY_BCC
What are databases?
A database is a collection of information that is organized for retrieval. In the library context, databases are most often collections of articles from academic journals, newspapers, magazines, or encyclopedias. There are also databases of images, audio and video material, ebooks, and other types of data.
What are academic (or scholarly) journals?
People who do research at universities and other private and public institutions write about their research to share their findings with other researchers. They publish their research in academic journals. Their research is often peer-reviewed, which means other experts in the field read the research articles before they get published to make sure they meet the standards for scholarly research.