NCJRS Virtual Library

Established in 1972, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is an Office of Justice Programs (OJP) resource offering support and information to further justice-related research, policy, and program development. 

The NCJRS Virtual Library hosts a collection of over 235,000 information resources on criminal justice subjects, including corrections, courts, drugs, law enforcement, juvenile justice, victims of crime, and related topics. The Virtual Library provides access to all known OJP works and sponsored research, as well as to thousands of government products, research reports, journal articles, and published and unpublished literature produced through 2014.

Through its collection of over 235,000 information resources on criminal justice subjects, the NCJRS Virtual Library provides access to all known OJP works and sponsored research, as well as to thousands of government products, research reports, journal articles, and published and unpublished literature produced through 2014.

The collection has been developed to meet the needs of professionals, researchers, policymakers, and technical and legal experts in the criminal justice, juvenile justice, and drug/substance abuse fields. Focused subject areas of the collection include corrections, courts, crime prevention, criminology, drugs, juveniles, law enforcement, statistics, technology, and victims of crime.

The NCJRS Virtual Library’s New Additions service allows users to view the most recent resources added to the collection. Resources housed in the collection include all known OJP works and sponsored research, as well as thousands of Federal, State, and local government products; research reports; journal articles; and published and unpublished literature on a wide range of criminal and juvenile justice topics produced through 2014.

The NCJRS Virtual Library’s primary focus is on the collection of information resources produced, funded, and/or sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (OJP). The NCJRS Virtual Library can only consider items for inclusion in the collection if you or your organization produce resources on behalf of OJP or create resources that are sponsored or funded by OJP. 

Follow the instruction below to submit resources to the NCJRS Virtual Library. Before submitting a resource to the NCJRS Virtual Library search the collection to ensure that it has not already been acquired.

• Hardcopy resources may be sent to:

                OJP Response Center and Library Services
                ATTN: NCJRS Virtual Library
                P.O. Box 6000
                Rockville, MD 20849-6000

• Electronic versions of documents can be submitted via email to the NCJRS Virtual Library. In the correspondence indicate if you grant permission to post the resource online. All electronic formats are accepted and will be converted to PDF if permission to post is granted.
• Web-Based document URLs can be submitted via email to the NCJRS Virtual Library.
• Document collection donations are accepted. Please contact the NCJRS Virtual Library via email to arrange this transaction.
• Collection suggestions are welcome and may be submitted via email. All suggested resources will be evaluated against collection development criteria. Include the full citation and/or document URL in the message.

Search operations are limited to exact match term or phrase searching. Search returns will include collection records that have only an exact match of the entered search term or phrase. Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) and command characters (quotation marks, proximity operators, etc.) are not currently supported by the NCJRS Virtual Library search interface.

To conduct a search of the NCJRS Virtual Library collection visit the search page. Once on the search page… 

1. Expand the Search Filters accordion.
2. Select your desired filters or leave the default settings. You may filter by…
   • Full Text Availability – You may select ANY, YES (full text available only), or NO (hardcopy available only).
   • OJP Program Office – Denotes a specific OJP Program Office authored or sponsored the resource.
3. Enter a term or phrase in any of the presented search criteria fields. Search criteria fields include…
   • General – A composite search across various catalog fields.
   • Title – A search strictly looking at a resource title.
   • Journal – A search restricted to resources from a specific Journal Title.
   • NCJ Number – NCJ Number is the NCJRS Virtual Library unique catalog identifier. A search using the NCJ Number will only return a single catalog record.
   • Author – A search restricted to resources from a specific Author.
   • Published After and Published Before – Setting these “date published” parameters (mm/yyyy) will limit the search to resources published during the expressed date range.
4. Select how you would prefer the results set to be presented.
   • You may Sort by…
     • Date Published [default]
     • Date Added to the collection
     • Title (alphabetically)
     • NCJ Number (numerically)
   • You may also select how you would like the results Ordered…
     • Descending (highest to lowest) [default]
     • Ascending (lowest to highest)
5. Click on the blue "Submit all selections" button.

Initial search returns are sorted by Date Published in descending order (newest to oldest). However, you can modify this prior to your search (reference “Search the Collection”).

Additionally, you may edit an executed search by opening the “Use Search Filters” accordion presented above the search results listing. The criteria entered for your initial search will be presented in the accordion and you may modify your search criteria and execute a new search.

While searching the NCJRS Virtual Library collection you will encounter links to online materials. Be mindful of copyright restrictions with any reuse or repurposing – even online accessible information is covered by U.S. copyright restrictions.

The NCJRS Virtual Library does not hold the copyright for any of the materials housed in the collection. Transmission or reproduction of protected items beyond that allowed by Fair Use as defined in U.S. copyright law requires permission of the copyright owners. It is the responsibility of the user to examine the copyright and licensing restrictions of linked pages and to secure all necessary permission if further use of these materials is desired.

Note that online Federal government information accessed through the collection is in the public domain. This information may be freely distributed and copied; however, in any subsequent use the authoring agency should be cited and given appropriate acknowledgement. Materials authored or published by other, non-government organizations may be protected by U.S. and foreign copyright laws. These links are provided for the convenience of Internet access. 

More detailed information pertaining to copyright restrictions of resources accessed through NCJRS Virtual Library services is provided in the Document Delivery and Interlibrary Loan sections below.

Many resources — and most resources published by OJP Program Offices since 1995 — are available in online, full-text format. Links to these online resources are included in the NCJRS Virtual Library catalog records and appear in the search result entries. Note that, in addition to full-text document links, links to publisher web sites or other relevant resources may also be provided.

PDFs of select NCJRS Virtual Library materials are available. Due to copyright restrictions, only one PDF of a document can be provided per request. PDFs of copyright-protected materials are not normally available from the NCJRS Virtual Library; however, special exceptions are made for requests that comply with Fair Use criteria (17 USC 107). See below for information on Standard and Fair Use requests, as well as delivery and copyright restrictions.

Standard Requests – An "Order PDF/Photocopy" link will appear on a catalog record page for documents that can be ordered online through the NCJRS Virtual Library standard service. Simply click on the “Order PDF/Photocopy” link and follow the prompts to submit your request.

Fair Use Requests – The Fair Use clause (17 USC 107) allows for reproduction of particular works for purposes including criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Four factors are considered when determining whether a particular request complies with the Fair Use clause:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether it is commercial in nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work.
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work.

Fair Use requests received by the NCJRS Virtual Library are evaluated against these four factors and either approved or rejected. To place a Fair Use request simply email your request to the NCJRS Virtual Library clearly citing the document and stating the purpose of the request (i.e. research, scholarship, teaching, etc.). NCJRS Virtual Library staff will respond to your request promptly and advise you on how to proceed. 

Delivery – In most cases the NCJRS Virtual Library will deliver a PDF of the requested document to the email address provided at the time of ordering. Printouts or photocopies (black and white) of the requested materials can be provided if requested. Contact the NCJRS Virtual Library at library@ncjrs.gov after placing the order in the Shopping Cart if a printout or photocopy is needed in place of the PDF and cite the provided Order Number. 

Copyright Notice – Under no circumstances does receiving a photocopy or PDF from the NCJRS Virtual Library waive copyright. All subsequent use of the materials acquired from the NCJRS Virtual Library must be properly cited or approved by the copyright holder, normally the author or publisher of a document, and cannot be authorized by the NCJRS Virtual Library.

Most resources in the NCJRS Virtual Library collection are available through Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to patrons in the United States and Canada. 

To initiate an ILL request, contact a librarian at your local library for assistance. ILL requests can be submitted to the NCJRS Virtual Library by email at library@ncjrs.gov. If additional guidance is needed, your local librarian can call the NCJRS Virtual Library at 800-851-3420.

Note that under no circumstances does receiving a loan from the NCJRS Virtual Library waive copyright. All subsequent use of the materials borrowed from the NCJRS Virtual Library must be properly cited or approved by the copyright holder, normally the author or publisher of a document, and cannot be authorized by the NCJRS Virtual Library.

Many of the publications housed in the NCJRS Virtual Library collection are available at local libraries and the NCJRS Virtual Library provides a function for you to search these collections through the "Find in a Library" feature. At times, it might be faster, cheaper, and/or more convenient to access the documents you find in the NCJRS Virtual Library collection at a library in your area.

When presented on a catalog record page click the "Find in a Library" link to discover if a particular NCJRS Virtual Library resource is available at your local library. By clicking on the "Find in a Library" link from a catalog record you will access OCLC WorldCat®, a global consortium of over 10,000 libraries, and be able to check if the document you are interested in is available at your local library. After connecting with WorldCat® you can filter the results by your City and State, or ZIP code, and see libraries local to you that may have the desired resource in their collections.

In addition to being available online, original copies of some documents published by OJP Program Offices can be ordered. An "Order" link will be presented in the NCJRS Virtual Library catalog record for items that are available for online ordering. Simply click the "Order" link when provided and follow the prompts to submit your request.