Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Abstract

Millard reviews Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice edited by Gerben Bruinsma and David Weisburd.

RR 2014/288 Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice Edited by Gerben Bruinsma and David Weisburd Springer New York 2014 ISBN 978 1 4614 5690 2 URL: www.springer.com/social+sciences/criminology/book/978-1-4614-5689-6 Last visited July 2014 £3,427.20 $4,350 Also available as a 10 Vol. print set (ISBN 978 1 4614 5689 6 £2880 $4350) or a print and online bundle (ISBN 978 1 4614 5691 9 £3600 $5,400)

Keywords Criminal justice, Criminology, Encyclopedias

Review DOI 10.1108/RR-07-2014-0210

The intent in the Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice, reviewed here in its online version, is to provide a "[. . .][c]omprehensive reference tool for the field of criminology and criminal justice, with an international perspective". The proposal is that in ten volumes (there is also a print version), the encyclopedia will provide an international and comprehensive resource not only identifying the past and current research related to this field, but also identifying emerging trends. As usual, Springer establishes a lofty goal.

There are ten main areas covered in this work: corrections and criminal justice supervision in the community; courts, sentencing and the judicial system; crimes, criminals and victims; crime places and situations; explanations for criminal behaviour; forensic science; data, methods and statistics; police and law enforcement; psychology of law; and social interventions and prevention. The authors who contribute to this work reflect these ten main areas. The end result is a resource with over 600 entries covering this wide expanse of criminal justice and criminology.

Searching the resource is easily done. Signing on to the work will take the user directly to a table of contents. Entries are arranged in alphabetical order, so a quick survey of the table of contents will take one to the relevant entries, such as Age-Crime Curve. The author or authors of the specific entry are immediately identified. From here, the user can click on the blue hyperlinked title to get a brief overview of the entry. Clicking on the View Reference Work Entry will then access the complete article. There is also the option to download a PDF. Unfortunately, whenever I clicked on the download button, I ended up downloading the complete table of contents. I was not able to find a way of downloading only the relevant article. Of course, a user could then identify the relevant pages and print only those pages. However, this is one more step to access the information. A minor point, but for students who only want one entry, this could pose a problem.

When a brief entry is accessed, the user is given options. It is possible to go directly to the complete reference work entry, or the user can use an index on the left hand side of the screen where key elements of the entry are identified, such as Overview, Key Issues or specific access points related directly to the topic in hand, as well as Related Entries and Recommended Reading and References. Clicking on any entry will take the researcher directly to that specific entry; an easy way of directing one's own research needs.

The entries in the table of contents do seem to indicate that the intended audience for this work are those who are already familiar with the subject. The use of abbreviations and subject-specific terms makes it difficult for those not completely familiar with the discipline. For example, one entry is simply ABM. Yes, one can simply click on the title for further information to fully exploit this work. However, for those from other disciplines (history, literature and library sciences in my case), these type of entries are confusing. Given the rise of cross-curricular research, it is now not only acceptable but common for those in one field to cross over to another discipline for research.

Searching within the resource itself is easily done. There is a Search Within this Reference Work box. A user can simply enter any term or terms, such as "gang", and be presented with all of the entries that are related to this topic. The results are listed with each entry identifying the title of the complete article. The first part of the complete article is listed (up to three lines). This allows the researcher to quickly survey the contents - or at least to get a hint of the contents of the article - to determine the relevance of the article to the topic undertaken. The author of the article and the source are listed. From here, the user can also download a PDF of the work or view the reference work entiy. However, again, I could not find any easy way of downloading only the article of interest. For example, the article entitled Hormones, the Brain and Criminology is of interest to me. I download the PDF and in fact, I end up downloading all of the entries for the letter H. I then scroll through the entries for the article of interest. However, clicking on View Reference Work Entry will take me directly to the article from where I can print the complete article. This is just a minor point, but one that is essential to remember for the researcher who needs to print off the article.

During the search process, if a term is entered that does not result in any hits, hints are generated on how to improve search terms. This is a useful feature that serves as a reminder for those cases when a researcher uses a term not indexed.

Results are displayed in relevance order by default. I could not find any indication of how relevance is determined but it does appear to work well. Any term that I entered did end up with results, and the main or best ones did appear to be displayed first. The researcher can also change the sort to Newest or Oldest first. This is not useful when one has access to only one online resource (all articles were published at the same time), but if there is access to various other Springer products, this could be useful. On the left hand side of the screen, the researcher can limit the search results by various options, including Content Type, Discipline, Subdiscipline, Source (Published In) and Language. Again, not useful when one only has access to one online resource, but this is a clear indicator of the power of this product.

The advanced search feature itself posed a search. There is buried an advanced search screen, but access is through clicking on an icon beside the search box. If you are familiar with Springer resources, accessing the advanced screen would be easy. However, for a beginner who is looking for a line or link to an advanced search, I ended up having to play around and clicking on anything that would or could possibly move me to an advanced search. Clicking on this icon also links to a help screen. From the advanced search, users can limit searching through a wide variety of means. This provides power to the researcher, as he or she is able to control the search capabilities directly.

The authors do seem to be highly regarded experts in their field. I checked over 20 entries for their authors. In all cases, the authors were either professors in the field or recognized experts. All of the authors that I checked also are widely published. This does continue Springer's reputation for producing only highest-quality resources.

Springer set a high goal for this resource in attempting to create an authoritative resource. The publisher has clearly maintained their reputation of producing only quality products and the Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice is highly recommended.