NCJRS and Other Gateways to the World Wide Web


This workshop reviews the NCJRS website and other large sites that act as gateways to justice information and other types of information on the World Wide Web including:

1.     National Criminal Justice Reference Service

2.     Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement

3.     Gateways to Federal, State and Local Government Information

4.     Statistics and Demographic Information

5.     Bibliographic Tools

 


 

National Criminal Justice Reference Service

NCJRS Virtual Library
http://www.ncjrs.gov

Located on the left hand side of the NCJRS web site, the Virtual Library provides access to electronic versions of over 1,500 OJP and ONDCP publications. Publications are broken down into topical categories and subcategories.

NCJRS Abstracts Database
http://www.ncjrs.gov/abstractdb/search.asp

Searchable database containing over 160,000 abstracts of justice publications including: Federal, State, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, and unpublished research.

NCJRS Calendar of Events
http://eventscalendar.ncjrs.gov/

The NCJRS Calendar of Events offers a comprehensive list of conferences, workshops, seminars, and other events relating to juvenile and criminal justice and drug control policy. The Calendar also allows users to add events to the database.

Read hints about using these three resources.

Exercises

1. Find a journal article by D. Alex Heckert on batterer programs.
Answer

2. Find an article written in 2000 on restorative justice.
Answer

3. Find a document containing the words prisoner(s) and rehabilitation in the title, but not drugs.
Answer

4. What organization(s) is sponsoring the Tenth International Conference on Safe Communities being held in May 2001?
Answer


 

Additional Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Resources

 

Frank Schmalleger's Cybrary
http://talkjustice.com/cybrary.asp

Compiled by Frank Schmalleger, the director of the Justice Research Center and co-director of the Justice Distance Learning Consortium, this site contains a very large criminal justice directory divided into numerous and specific categories. The site also includes criminal justice and law enforcement related news and links to the Talk Justice message board and chat room.

Officer.com
http://www.officer.com

Created by James Meredith, a Massachusetts police officer, the site provides links to unions, support groups, special units and other information. Includes a massive directory of municipal law enforcement agency websites. Also posts conference announcements.

Pavnet
http://www.pavnet.org

Hosted by seven federal agencies, "PAVNET Online presents information on programs around the country that address youth violence, family violence, community violence, substance abuse, and the needs of victims." Most of the programs presented are at least partially supported by federal grants.

APBnews
http://www.apbnews.com/

A news center focused exclusively on crime and public safety news. Often has stories not seen anywhere else.

 


Gateways to Federal, State, and Local Government Information

GPOAccess
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html

GPOAccess provides access to information from all three branches, including the Budget, bills, Supreme Court Decisions, the U.S.Code, the Congressional Record and much more. With the website, the GPO is trying to assume the same central role they had in the paper age.

Thomas
http://thomas.loc.gov/

The Library of Congress's directory to congressional information (bills, hearings, committee reports, etc.). For the most part coverage starts in 1995 with the first session of the 104th Congress, but the site also provides access to major laws and other selected material from earlier dates.

Piper Resources to State and Local Government
http://www.statelocalgov.net

A comprehensive set of links to state, county and city agencies.

GovBOT Search Engine
http://eden.cs.umass.edu/Govbot

GovBot searches 1,594,012 web pages from U.S. Government sites.

GovStartpage
http://www.govstartpage.com

A large commercial directory with a highly condensed listing of agency web sites. Includes links to GovBot and two other federal government search engines.

 


 

Statistics and Demographic Information



The Statistical Abstract
http://www.census.gov/statab/www/

The National Data Book, it contains a large collection of statistics on social and economic conditions in the United States.

U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov

A massive site now containing some data from the 2000 Census and complete information from the 1990 Census. The data is broken down into major subject areas (poverty, home-ownership, population).

FedStats
http://www.fedstats.gov

The Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy maintains this site to provide easy access to the statistics and information produced by over 70 agencies.


Bibliographic Tools

Uncover
http://uncweb.carl.org

One of the best ways to get journal article citations, this commercial information provider allows users to search the table of contents of thousands of journals at no charge.

Library of Congress Online Catalog
http://catalog.loc.gov

One of the most complete catalogs of books in the world.

PubMed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/

PubMed is the National Library of Medicine's search service that provides access to over 11 million citations in MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, and other related databases, with links to participating online journals.

ERIC
http://www.accesseric.org/searchdb/searchdb.html

Sponsored by the Department of Education, the ERIC database is the world's largest source of education information. The database contains more than 950,000 abstracts of documents and journal articles on education research and practice.


Additional Gateway Exercises

1. What is the phone number of the Brockville Police Service in Ontario, Canada?
Answer

2. Find the text of Senate Report 106-352 from the 106th Congress.
Answer

3. According to the 2000 Census, what is the number of Texans who indicated their ethnicity as Asian?
Answer

4. Find a journal article dealing with lead exposure and effects on child learning.
Answer


Compiled by James Fort and Scott Hertzberg. NCJRS. Office of Justice Programs. March 2001