Collection Development Policies: Criminal Justice

COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY

Subject: CRIMINAL JUSTICE

     Program Description

 The criminal justice degree began as a Bachelor of Science  and changed to a Bachelor of Arts. It is an interdisciplinary program combining selected areas of the disciplines of psychology, social psychology, political science, public administration, sociology, and criminology and criminal justice. The program is designed to provide students with a broad social science background for understanding crime, criminal behavior, and the criminal justice system and to offer the opportunity to prepare for a professional career in criminal justice.

There are 23 undergraduate courses and 4 graduate seminars. Majors are asked to supplement their required courses with courses in technical writing, statistics, sociology and psychology.

Description of Existing Collection

NCIP Code: 2a

Materials are classified in the following Library of Congress areas BF698-839, HM251-291, JK,JS,KF,JF1321),HM-HN,HV, and HV6001-9960. The collection includes a large selection of monographs and documents. Journals are available in criminal law, behavior, violence, and social problems. Supporting areas in evidence and courts are lacking. The KF classification is lacking criminal justice titles and has been built to emphasize the needs of the public administration program.

Government documents includes publications from the Department of Justice including court reports and histories of agencies in the criminal justice system.

Police administration and police systems are included in the collection as are materials on corrections and crime. These areas contain the largest portion of current materials and are consistently updated.

Current Collecting Intensity

NCIP Code: 2a

Current acquisitions are increasing the number of current volumes. The approval profile is designed to include titles on police administration, jurisprudence, criminal law, and other related areas. Serial cuts have reduced the criminal justice titles, however major titles have remained in the collection and additional titles are available through electronic databases.  In particular, the Library subscribes to two databases: Criminal Justice Abstracts and Criminal Justice Periodical Index which includes selected full text of articles. Legal reference tools are available, as are current dictionaries and encyclopedias in sociology, psychology, police administration, criminology, and political science.

The Reference and Document collections contain a broad range of materials that relate to the criminal justice program. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories, and federal and state documents are available. Some Reference tools are dated and in need of new editions or more current resources.

                    Last updated: 03/06/03