The sites below are a good beginning for finding material on the capital punishment issue that has been published over the Internet. They contain valuable material and links to other useful sites. In addition, you will find the general search tools for internet documents valuable for tracking down Internet information on specific issues, if you use well-formed searches.
Also, most important, remember that much of the research on this issue must be found in printed documents. Some of these you find through the general search tools for printed documents (and some can be viewed "on line"). For others you may need to conduct searches at the library. The first item following focuses on these sources for printed works to stress their importance. The remainder concern material published on the Internet.
| Printed
Publications Databases, such as ProQuest, WilsonWeb,
and JStor.
These will lead you to crucial work by scholars and
commentary related to the social sciences. (ProQuest probably
finds a better range of work but does not provide "SFX" links to online
sources if it does not carry the full text; WilsonWeb does provide
"SFX" links; JStor has the best scholarly content and all items are
available on line, but it does not contain recent works from the past
several years.) Generally you should start with a simple
search, for example use: "death penalty" OR "capital punishment" You will find that a simple search often requires you to sort through a fair number of irrelevant titles as you pick out the potentially useful ones, however it has less chance of missing important things. If the search seems to find too much, narrow it further as needed. To give you a quick start here are some links that will take you to these databases and automatically run the simple search defined above: Click here to see how this search pattern works with WilsonWeb, or here with Proquest (and here for JStor, although this predefined search may fail). See the general search tools for printed documents for further suggestions. |
| Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Brings together data about all aspects of criminal justice in the United States. Available at this site are over 600 tables and 4 figures from more than 100 sources. |
| Death Penalty Information Center DPIC is a nonprofit group that compiles information and statistics on the death penalty for the public and the media. The site includes information and links to facts about the death penalty, public opinion, costs, special topics (women, juveniles), criminologists views and papers on deterrence, and other information. |
| Death Penalty Law Materials Information and outstanding links set up by Cornell Law School. Information and links related to Federal and State laws, court decisions, Constitutional issues. |
| Derechos Human Rights Death Penalty Page This site has excellent links to information on death penalty. |
| Bureau of Justice Statistics The BJS is a component of the US Justice Department. The BJS collects, analyzes and publishes information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the criminal justice system at all levels of government. Links to government publications. |
| Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports Access FBI's compilation of crime statistics and government publications on crime statistics. |
| Death Penalty Information and Resource Center This is the American Criminology Society's Anti-Capital Punishment information. This site includes general information and statistics on the death penalty and links to more. |
| Amnesty International and the Death Penalty Information and links set up by the famed international organization opposed to the death penalty. |
