Journal databases:

• Are the best source of academic or scholarly information for your assessments
• help you locate peer reviewed articles
• Are subject specific, so that you get more relevant results
• Have many options for refining results

Take a look at the Journal Articles page on the Justice Studies Library Resource Guide to find relevant journals and databases

Visit the Law & Justice Studies and Emergency Management, Policing & Public Safety listings for all potentially useful databases in your area. Note that you don't have to use every database for every assignment - but nor should you restrict your search to one database only.

Don't forget, you can also use Primo Search and Google Scholar to locate journal articles.

When you go into a journal database you will notice that many of them feature multiple search boxes that are stacked one above the other in rows.

While they may look intimidating, they can make your search process easier.

Think of each row as a train of thought. For example, if you were searching for an article about the ethical collection of evidence by police, you could use a new row for each element of your topic. In this case you might search for:

1st search row: ethic*
2nd search row: investigat* OR collect*
3rd search row: evidence

Entered as in the screenshot below:

The above example is from the Australian Criminology Database (CINCH). For information about the search techniques used check out the search strategies page in this guide. 

Tip: If you want to learn more about how to maximise your search using search strategies, contact the Library. We can assist you in creating an effective search strategy.

Take a look at the video below for a demonstration of how to search within ProQuest and Informit databases.

• The Library holds a series of Online Library Workshops, some of these focus on journal database searching. 
• We also have a Databases Help guide that contains a wealth of information on using journal databases.