Criminal Justice Subject Guide

Government Documents

8 resources available
- Restricted to WMU users  - Open Access

---

U.S. Federal Government Documents
Waldo Library is a depository for U.S. government documents, which means that it receives documents from all branches of the federal government. Most of these documents are located on the 2nd floor of Waldo Library in the Documents Area. Many of the documents are available electronically via the Web. Government documents held in Waldo are arranged by SuDoc numbers, assigned by the Superintendent of Documents, which are different from the Library of Congress (LC) system used for most books.

In addition to using the Library Catalog, WestCat, to find documents which are in our collection, the following resources are available for US government documents:

GPO Access (Government Printing Office) 

GPO Access offers free searching and access to the full text of the Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, the Congressional Record, U.S. Public Laws, the Budget of the United States, GAO Reports, and other major U.S. government documents.

Criminal Justice Documents: A Selective, Annotated Bibliography of US Government Publications Since 1975

Z 5703.4. C 73 B 47 1987
Useful when conducting a retrospective search for materials.

USA.gov 

Online information, services, and resources from the official U.S. government web portal.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) 

This federally funded powerhouse of CJ services and reference information summarizes over 160,000 publications in its Abstracts database, including government reports, books, articles, and published and unpublished research reports. An exclusively full text NCJRS Virtual Library is also available. Most items not available full text online can be purchased from NCJRS. A full array of services can be had at no cost by registering online.

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC)

This research service, based at Syracuse University, is co-directed by David Burnham, whose investigating reporting credits include the police corruption series that inspired the film Serpico, and involvement with the Karen Silkwood case. Access is given to information about the federal government's enforcement and regulatory activities made public through the Freedom of Information Act, for agencies such as the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

US Department of Justice

This site contains information on many subjects pertinent to the US Department of Justice, such as white collar crime, drugs, violence, and prisons. The section on "Hot Topics" includes reports and data on current crime and justice issues.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Government Documents Library

This University of Illinois Libraries' gateway features a unique "Sites of the Week" collection of links covering timely topics, such as "homeland security," and periodic popular or scholarly online exhibits incorporating government materials.

University of Michigan Government Documents Center

This University of Michigan Libraries' gateway offers a straightforward approach to navigating the overwhelming array of online government resources. Using frames, the Federal Documents section provides broad categories, such as the Federal budget and copyright, as well as an index covering over 100 topics, in an easy-to-digest format. The Foreign Governments and International sections link to documents by region, country, or topic (anthems, constitutions, or the military).

login