Because of its eclectic nature, criminal justice can be a difficult discipline to research. This readable guide should help students through the maze of data. Choice Lutzker and Ferrall skillfully introduce the student, professor, or researcher to the sources in the field and suggest logical ways of approaching them when doing research. Reference Books Journal

Library research has changed dramatically since Marilyn Lutzker and Eleanor Ferrall's Criminal Justice Research in Libraries was published in 1986. In addition to covering the enduring elements of traditional research, this new edition provides full coverage of research using the World Wide Web, hypertext documents, computer indexes, and other online resources. It gives an in-depth explanation of such concepts as databases, networks, and full text, and the Internet gets a full chapter. The chapters on bibliographic searching, the library catalog, and comparative research are almost totally new, and chapters on indexes and abstracts, newsletters, newspapers and news broadcasts, documents, reports and conference proceedings, and statistics reflect the shift to computerized sources. The chapter on legal resources discusses the wealth of legal information available on the Internet. A new chapter on library research in forensic science corrects an omission from the first book. With the growth of computerized indexes and the Internet, more and more researchers are admitting that they feel inadequate to the new tools. Librarians themselves are struggling to keep abreast of the new technology. This book will help students, practitioners, scholars, and librarians develop a sense of competency in doing criminal justice research.

Designed to assist criminal justice students and practitioners to conduct research on problems and issues facing the criminal justice system. It is based upon the authors' collective experience as researchers and instructors in criminal justice research and policy analysis. The definitions and examples provided in the book will help students and practitioners to both comprehend research articles and reports and to conduct their own research.

This third edition is designed as an introduction to research methods in criminal justice techniques. The detailed information that is generated by research is a management tool that has become a significant part of criminal justice operations. The text discusses the purposes, process, and uses of research that focus on identifying what information is already known about a particular topic or question. Ethical issues in criminal justice research are reviewed, as is investigating the validity and reliability of crime data sources. Also offered is an introduction to research design--the plan or blueprint for a complete research project. The principles of sampling are thoroughly discussed as is survey research, a common form of gathering information in the criminal justice setting. A review of the concept of scaling and some common methods of scale construction are introduced. Additional major topics include qualitative interviews and observational studies in qualitative research, as well as a wide variety of research techniques that comprise evaluation research. The definitions and examples provided in the book will help students and practitioners to both comprehend research articles and reports and to conduct their own research. Each of the authors brings specific areas of expertise to the text, and they are familiar with the research process and have worked together on several published studies. The text is designed primarily for persons with little or no research background and provides real-world examples and clear definitions of terms and concepts.