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Criminal Justice Abstracts (CJ Abstracts), a core database in the field of criminology research, indexes journals, books, conference proceedings, and government and non-governmental reports that focus on criminal justice research. Due to its extensive indexing the database allows you to explore all angles of criminology research including law, health science, sociology, psychology, and education. As suggested by its title, CJ Abstracts is an abstract-only database, meaning that you will need to use WebBridge to locate the full text of an article. Please see the WebBridge Guide for clarification on how to locate the full text.
CJ Abstracts has 3 search interfaces: Quick Search, Advanced Search, and Search Tools. This guide will walk you through the Quick Search and Advanced Search functions; if you would like any assistance with the Search Tools screen, please contact a Reference Librarian.
When you first access CJ Abstracts you will be brought to the Quick Search screen. The Quick Search screen has limited functionality so it is important that you know how to use Boolean operators and truncation to get the most out of your search.
Enter keywords representing your topic in the search box and group them together using the operators described below:
- "AND" – use AND to link together search concepts (prison AND suicide prevention)
- "OR" – use OR to link together synonyms and related terms (prisoner or inmate)
- "*" – use * to retrieve variant forms of your search term (enter "prison*" to retrieve articles containing the words prison, prisons, prisoner, and prisoners)
Criminal Justice Abstracts has an extensive list of operators for you to use; please consult their list of operators to view more advanced search functions.
The only limiter available on the Quick Search screen is the Date Range limiter; here you can limit the results to only those articles that have been published in the last year, 5 years, 10 years, or you can leave it at the default to pull up all available references.
Quick Search Screen
Unlike Quick Search, the Advanced Search has a variety of limiters for you to utilize; its layout however makes it more confusing to use. To use the Advanced Search screen:
- Enter synonyms on the same line (each search box is automatically separated by an OR)
- Put different concepts on different lines (each line is automatically separated by an AND)
See the page image below to see how to enter in a search for suicide prevention programs in correctional facilities.
Use the drop-down menu to limit your search to specific fields. The default is "Anywhere," meaning that the database will look for your keywords anywhere within the citation, descriptors, or abstract of the article. By using the search field limiters, you can tell the database to look for your keywords only in specific fields (author, title, abstract, etc).
Advanced Search Screen
Search results are listed by date of publication (most recent first); click on the "Sort By" drop-down menu to view the results by relevance.
To read the abstract of an article, click on its title. You will then see the article citation and abstract with your search terms appearing in bold.
Once you are in the article view you can click on the "Next" link to view the next article or you can click on the "Return to Results" link to go back to your search results screen.
Publication Type Tabs
CJ Abstracts allows you to view your search results by publication type; click on the Publication Type tabs to refresh your search results to only those citations that are for journal articles, peer-reviewed journal articles, books, or other (such as conference proceedings).
One word of caution: do not rely solely on the Peer-Reviewed Journals tab to determine whether or not your article is a peer-reviewed scholarly article, since errors are possible. This feature is there only to help weed out the more glaringly obvious non-scholarly journals. Please consult Geisel's Popular and Trade versus Scholarly Sources Guide to help determine whether or not an article is a peer-reviewed scholarly resource. If more clarification is needed, Ask A Librarian for assistance.
Descriptors
CJ Abstracts assigns descriptors to every citation in their database. Descriptors are subject headings that capture the main themes and topics discussed in any given article. As a result, searching by descriptors can yield highly relevant search results.
There are 2 ways to use descriptors after running your initial search:
From the Search Results Screen: (see page image below)
- Click on the desired descriptor from the list of descriptors immediately to the right of each citation
- This will run a new search using only that selected descriptor
From the Article Record View: (see page image below)
- Check the box in front of the desired descriptor
- Select what Boolean operator you would like to use
- Click Go
- This will rerun your initial search with the selected descriptor and Boolean operator
You can also use the descriptor function by limiting Advanced Search keyword searches to the descriptor field or by using the Search Tools screen. For assistance in using these functions please Ask A Librarian.
Search Results Screen
Article Record View
Save, Print, or Email Citations
To save, print or email your citations one at a time:
- Click on the "Save, Print, Email" link in the article
- Select your desired save, print, or email options
To save, print, or email your citations as a group:
- Mark the citations you would like to download by checking the box next to the article title or by checking the box in the article view
- Immediately after checking the box click the "Update Marked List" link
- When you are done marking your citations, click the "Save, Print, Email" link
- Select the "Use Marked Records" radio button
- Select your desired save, print, or email options
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