Reference Sources

There are many helpful encyclopedias, dictionaries, and handbooks in Widener and other libraries that can give you a general overview of a specific topic. You can try searching in HOLLIS for your subject (see the HOLLIS tab for finding the proper Subject terms) plus the words encyclopedias or dictionaries. Thus: “United States” AND prison* AND (encyclopedias OR dictionaries) yields:

Encyclopedia of prisons and correctional facilities, ed. by Mary Bosworth. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE publications, 2005, 2 v.
HOLLIS record

The Encyclopedia of American prisons, ed. by Carl Sifakis. NY: Facts on File, 2003.
HOLLIS record

Punishment in America : a reference handbook, by Cyndi Banks. Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, 2005, 319 p.
HOLLIS Record

World police encyclopedia, ed. by Dilip K. Das and Michael J. Palmiotto. New York : Routledge, 2006. 2 v. HOLLIS record

World encyclopedia of police forces and correctional systems, ed. by George Thomas Kurian, 2nd ed. Detroit : Thomson Gale, 2006. 2 v. HOLLIS record

Encyclopedia of law enforcement, ed. by Larry E. Sullivan and Marie Simonetti Rosen. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2005. 3 v. HOLLIS record

Oxford Companion to American Law offers a comprehensive guide to the development and current status of American law through an alphabetical organization that comprises several broad categories of entries. 

The Oxford Guide to the United States Government

The U.S. justice system : an encyclopedia, ed. by Steven Harmon Wilson. Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, 2012. 3 v.

Cambridge Economic History of the United States

Cambridge History of Law in America

The Oxford Companion to United States History

Biography

Criminological thought : pioneers past and present, by Randy Martin and Robert J. Mutchnick, W. Timothy Austin. New York : Macmillan, 1990. xxiii, 424 p. HOLLIS record

African American criminological thought, by Helen Taylor Greene and Shaun L. Gabbidon. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000. Available online

Cops, crooks, and criminologists: an international biographical dictionary of law enforcement, by Alan Axelrod, Charles Phillips, with Kurt Kemper. New York : Facts On File, 2000. xiii, 322 p.
HOLLIS record
--Index by crime, by organization