Contents:

• Police, Corrections and Criminal Justice in the United States
• Law
• Department of Justice/FBI Investigation Files
• Police and Criminal Justice in Great Britian
• International Studies
• Social Science Research Collections

I. POLICE, CORRECTIONS AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN THE UNITED STATES

Police Department Annual Reports

Over 300 jurisdictions in the United States are represented in this collection of State, county and municipal police department annual reports. Periods covered vary a great deal, but many go back to the 1920’s. New York City holdings are 1889, 1912-69, 1985-92.

A number of British and Australian jurisdictions are also represented, including the Great Britain Metropolitan Police Office, 1918-1985, 1994-96.

Most reports are bound; some holdings after 1980 are on microfiche. For information about specific cities, check CUNY+.

State reports on correction and punishment, poverty and public welfare prior to 1930. White Plains, NY: Kraus Microfilm Company, 1973. [microfiche]

States included are California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.  Periods covered vary; some documents date to the first half of the nineteenth century.

These reports, in addition to information on budgets, numbers of inmates (or residents), and details of administration and organization contain a wealth of details useful in researching the social history of the period.

“From the reports of the Superintendent of State Penitentiaries of Texas, we learn that between 1870 and 1874 the following problems were reported: the prison was bankrupt and had to borrow money for salaries since the legislature had voted no money for the year; the women prisoners were exceedingly difficult; the main prison industry, the manufacture of osnaburgs, was no longer profitable (1870); the prison was turned over to lessees and most of the prisoners were still working on the railroad (1871-72); people were being sent to prison solely because they were crippled or deformed; most prisoners were Negroes and were considered unsuited for any but agricultural labor (1873-1874).”

“From the 1891 reports of the Indiana State Board of Charities, we learn that ... the state legislature has not yet given its attention to the problems of the ‘abolition of the perquisite system, [or to ] the abolition of contract labor of the pupils of the State Benevolent Institutions.’

“The same group’s report on the Reform School for Girls and Women’s Prison talks about the need to keep those two functions separate, and about the problems that arise when destitute orphans and those who are dependent ... mix with those who have been committed for crime or vice.”(Lutzker, Research Projects for College Students, p66)

Special Collections. Check catalog by state for classifications.

The voices of organized crime. New York State. Legislature. Joint Committee on Crime, its Causes, Control and Effect on Society.
1 cassette (61 minutes)

This educational tape prepared by the Joint Committee contains secretly recorded conversations taped by various police and prosecutive agencies in New York State during the years 1963-65. Accompanying material supplied by the committee identifies the voices, transcribes the conversations and describes their usefulness in obtaining indictments. Conversations refer to the activities of organized crime, and its methods of operation.

The published Report of legislative recommendations is included.

Closed special collections: HV6452.N72M33 1968

Police Handbooks Collection.

A group of well-worn pocket size handbooks and manuals containing department rules and regulations. The collection of United States handbooks contains 45 volumes from 36 jurisdictions. Most date from 1900 to 1933, although a few are earlier and later. The foreign collection consists of 20 handbooks mostly from Germany and Austria, although Argentina, France, Norway, and Sri Lanka are also represented. Most are from 1901-1911.

Closed Special Collections: HV7921.C64; HV7921.P642

Richard Louis Dugdale. Papers. (37 items)

The collection consists of worksheets, tables, and correspondence. Included are the large worksheets containing raw data on over 800 individuals from which Dugdale compiled tables for his studies and the handwritten preface to an early edition of The Jukes describing the preparatory reading and circumstances which led to his conclusions about the relation of family history to crime and poverty.  There are also stray pages discussing criminal characteristics. The collection was donated by the New York Correctional Association.

Closed Special Collections: X 106

Lewis E. Lawes (1883-1947). Collection. 17 boxes, including Supplementary collection I, and Supplementary collection II

Warden of Sing Sing prison (1920-1941) and widely known public figure, Lawes had wide ranging interests and associations. This collection includes correspondence, drafts of articles and radio scripts, photographs, scrapbooks, prisoner publications and artifacts.  The bulk of the collection consists of scrap books of thousands of newspaper and magazine clippings. The correspondence includes Clarence Darrow, Franklin Roosevelt, Gene Tunney, and Harry Houdini.  Detailed finding aid available. Supplementary Collection I includes some Sing Sing administrative files. [E. Rowland, Finding Aid to the Collection]

Closed Special Collections. Unpublished guide.

Center for Knowledge in Criminal Justice Planning (Robert Martinson and Judith Wilks). (Also known as The Martinson Collection) Records (1975-78). 134 boxes.

The Center was established in order to survey  “all relevant research on the impact of programmatic intervention on recidivism....The project was an extension of a controversial earlier effort that had reviewed research in this area for the period 1945-67.”

The primary researchers of the “Center” were Robert Martinson and Judith Wilks, who, with Douglas Lipton had produced the earlier study, The effectiveness of correctional treatment: A survey of treatment evaluation studies, Praeger, 1975.

“The several thousand documents produced by the systematic search for ‘all relevant research’ are available in their original order with indexes supplying multiple access points...” [E. Rowland, Guide to the Collection] Although a Preliminary report was issued in 1976, there was no final report.

Closed Special Collections. Unpublished guide.

Richard Orb Hankey (1915-1979). Papers. 10 boxes.

Hankey’s career, with early connections to August Vollmer as student and protege, reflects the mid-century drive to professionalize law enforcement and to make criminal justice a legitimate academic discipline. Starting as a member of the Berkeley Police Department (1939 - 44), Hankey went on to academic positions at the College of the Sequoias (1948-57), California State College at Los Angeles, 1957-71), and Linn Benton Community  College in Albany, Oregon (1971-79). He was active in many professional associations and served as president of the American Society of Criminology, and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

Closed Special Collections. Unpublished guide.

William Copeland Dodge news clipping collection, 1933-1937. 16 boxes of scrapbooks.

William Copeland Dodge was elected New York District Attorney in 1933. The first box of this collection contains materials related to that campaign. Dodge was a Tammany Hall Democrat who successfully blocked many of Mayor Laguardia’s anti-crime initiatives and was reputed to have provided protection for some of the era’s most notorious racketeers.

Clippings from all New York City newspapers including the Times, News, World, American, Sun, and Herald Tribune document crime in New York City at the time, as well as the career of Dodge. The collection ends with Dodge’s defeat by Thomas E. Dewey in 1937.

II. LAW

New York City Court of General Sessions. Records. (1883 - 1927). 208 linear feet. 425 reels microfilm

Stenographic and typewritten transcripts of the complete proceedings of about 2700 criminal trials. Printed indexes are available by case number, by charge, and by names of defendants, judges, and attorneys.

Included are Court of General Sessions of the Peace, 1886-1927; New York Supreme Court, 1896-1922; Oyer and Terminer, 1886-1895; District Police Courts, 1887-1894; Miscellaneous courts, 1883-1926; Grand Jury (Court of General Sessions, New York Supreme Court), 1883-1920.

Closed Special Collections. Unpublished guide with historical introduction.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Papers. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1985. 72 reels microfilm

“The papers of Justice Holmes consist mainly of correspondence, biographical and family material, and Mark Howe’s research material.  Since Justice Holmes destroyed almost all letters of a private personal nature that he received, his correspondence consists mainly of letters which he sent out ... and letters received by Holmes of a more general nature....” [from The Guide...] Among the correspondents were Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Adams, Learned Hand, Harold Laski, and John H. Wigmore.

The collection consists of 29,000 items and is the property of Harvard Law School.

Special Collections, KF 8745.H6 A4. Printed guide.

Women and law. Berkeley, CA: Women’s History Research Center, 1975. 40 reels microfilm.

Newspaper clippings, (1969-74) from the files of the Women’s Law Library of the Women’s History Research Center, Berkeley, CA.

Section I: Law/General, Section II: Politics, Section III: Employment, Section IV: Education, Section V: Special Films: Rape/Prison/Prostitution, Section VI: Black and Third World

Special Collections KF 477. A1 W65. Printed guides.

The Sacco-Vanzetti Case Papers. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1985. 23 reels microfilm

Special Collections KF224.S2 S22 1985. Printed guide.

III. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE/ FBI INVESTIGATION FILES

(Microfilm; Classifications vary; check CUNY+)

Atlanta child murders.
Black Panther party
Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers
Cointelpro: the counter-intelligence program of the FBI. 30 reels microfilm.
Committee for Public Justice.
W.E.B. Dubois
Federal surveillance of Afro-Americans (1917-1925): The first world war, the Red scare, and the Garvey movement. 25 reels microfilm.
Joseph McCarthy
Malcolm X
Malcolm X Assassination Trial
Marcus Garvey
MIBURN (Mississippi Burning)
Elijah Muhammad
Muslim Mosque, Inc.
NAACP
Organization of Afro-American Unity
A. Philip Randolph
Eleanor Roosevelt
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Students for a Democratic Society and the Weatherman underground
Roy Wilkins

IV. POLICE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN GREAT BRITIAN

English criminal biographies, 1651-1722. 3 boxes; some biographies on film.

“In the early 18th century, criminal biography was a popular genre intended for the working class reader.  The biographies were generally short (about 30 pages), simple and topical.  Interest in these murderers, thieves and bigamists was rampant at that time due to the frequent public executions of criminals.  Written in a variety of styles, authors were inconsistent in their portrayals of these criminals.  Most were written in a comic tone. Dates and events were not always accurate but the names of people and places were carefully kept.  However, it is thought that fictitious events may have been added into each biography as well. The existence of the 32 criminal “heroes” included in this collection can be proved through historical documents.” [E. Rowland, Collection description]

This collection of 58 English criminal biographies and autobiographies was gathered from many libraries including the British Museum, the Library of Congress and a number of public and university libraries. The material was gathered by Robert R. Singleton in preparation for his work Defoe and criminal biography. (John Jay stacks: PR 3408.P6 S55 1969a)

There is some related material in the series Sex research: Early literature from statistics to erotica.**

Closed Special Collections.

Public order, discontent, and protest in Nineteenth century England. Sussex, Eng.: Harvester press, 1980-81. Pt 1, 1820-1830, 15 reels microfilm.

A collection of letters, papers, and reports concerning crime and public order from the Home Office manuscript collection held in the Public Record Office.  The documents contain information on criminal cases involving persons in the King’s service, disturbances in the countryside, turmoil in the cotton mills, and plans to deal with the increased political agitation.  This material is particularly useful for the study of public unrest in the years before the Great Reform Bill of 1832. No finding aid, but a contents list on each reel.

Special Collections: HN 385.P82

Great Britain. Metropolitan Police Office. Internal memoranda, police orders, commissioners’ correspondence and reports, 1829-1869. 14 reels microfilm.

Filmed from manuscripts in the Public Record Office for use by Wilbur Miller in Cops and bobbies; Police authority in New York and London, 1830-1870. “These [records]... provide details of both trivial and significant matters of official policy.” [Miller] The reels designated Mepol 7 are daily Police Orders; those designated Mepol 4 contain miscellaneous documents.

Closed Special Collections

V. INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Terrorism: special studies, 1975-1985; First supplement, 1985-1988. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1986, 1989. 10 reels microfilm.

Agencies responsible for these studies include the Army War College, Department of State, Rand corporation, National Bureau of Standards, Library of Congress. Studies range in length from 2 pages to over 100 pages.

Special Collections HV 6431.T494 and HV 6431.T495. Published guide contains full descriptions and subject indexes

Amnesty International: a major collection of published and unpublished research material, 1961/2-1990. Zug, Switz.: InterDocumentation co, 198?-  .Microfiche

Included are Amnesty International country dossiers, newsletters, reports, briefing papers, country reports and reports on general topics.

REF JC 571.A46.

VI. SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLECTIONS

Anti-saloon League of America. Papers, 1880 and 1894-1938. Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1977. 17 reels microfilm.

“The Saloon Must Go” was the motto of this non-partisan pressure organization which sought to mobilize church forces against the liquor traffic.  The collection includes correspondence, financial records, historical sketches, audits, news-clippings and legal briefs.

Special Collections: HV5196.T45. Published guide contains background information, series and reel descriptions.

Association against the Prohibition Amendment and the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform. Papers. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1981. 17 reels microfilm.

“The outburst of civic righteousness which produced the constitutional ban on intoxicating beverages provoked an equally serious and determined counterattack.  By closely examining the response to national prohibition, much can be learned about the limits to reform in America, political life from the 1910s to the l930s, and the nature of constitutional thought.  Since it provides the only instance in American history of an amendment being repealed, the antiprohibition victory offers unique insights into the constitutional process.” [from the Guide]

Special Collections HV 5089.A77 1981. Published guide.

Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching.  Papers, 1930-1942. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1983. 8 reels microfilm.

“...document the efforts of an organization aligned with the Commission on Interracial Cooperation to alleviate lynchings, which were occurring with increasing frequency in the 1920’s...  Its pursuit of that goal is documented in these papers, which include correspondence, meeting minutes, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, reports, ... petitions and questionnaires.” (from the guide)

Special Collections HV 6464.A87 1984. Published Guide

Bureau of Social Hygiene Project and research files - 1913 -1940. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1980. 31 reels microfilm.

The working papers of one of the earliest privately funded social science research institutions in the United States document the approach of experts to subjects of interest to the criminal justice researcher.  Among the documented studies are Abraham Flexner’s study of commercialized prostitution and Raymond Fosdick’s study of police systems in the United States and Europe.  A hidden treasure is Reel 9 which documents efforts during 1927-28 to establish a system of uniform crime reporting. 

Special Collections: HV99.N6B85. The published guide includes a brief history of the Bureau.

Tuskegee Institute news clipping file. Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, AL, 1978. 252 reels microfilm.

Newspaper clippings from more than 300 newspapers and periodicals from the early 20th century until 1996. The clippings, about Afro- Americans and events which affected them, are arranged in three series. Among the broad range of topics covered are agriculture, politics, crime, labor, colonization efforts, towns and settlements, and cultural events. The files on lynchings are particularly full.

Special Collections, E.185.5 T77 1976

The University Settlement Society of New York City. Papers. Madison, WI: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1972. 22 reels microfilm.

This filmed archive shows the role of the University Settlement Society in the movement to improve the quality of tenement life through social and recreational programs plus legislative reforms.  It documents the Society’s organization, development and activities from 1886 to 1945, as well as its participation in the international settlement house movement.  The most extensive series in the collection contains the “headworkers” subject files and correspondence with public officials and notables.  Their concerns vary from control of prostitution to abuse of child labor, from funding the Society’s public bath attendants to keeping abreast of the Russian Revolution.  Substantial biographical material on residents, staff and volunteers can be found through the collection.

Special Collections, HV 4196.N6 U54. Published guide.

Flora Rheta Schreiber (1916-1988) Papers.

Prof. Schreiber, the author of “Sybil” and The Shoemaker, taught at John Jay College for many years. She was a prolific writer and correspondent, and retained all of her papers. 37 boxes. Unpublished guide.

Closed Special Collections. Unpublished guide

Sex research: Early literature from statistics to erotica. Woodbridge, CT: Research Publications, 198 xx

Eighteenth and nineteenth century pamphlets and books from the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, Indiana University. Library owns Section 2, (reels 15-24), Sex, law and medicine.

The part of the collection represented here includes monographs, pamphlets, and records of trials dealing with subjects such as insanity, adultery, sodomy, and divorce. There are also several criminal biographies and marriage manuals. Materials are primarily from Great Britain.

Representative titles: “Observations on abortion: containing an account of the manner in which it takes place ...” London, 1807; “Observations concerning the prevention and cure of the venereal disease.  Intended to guard the ignorant and unwary ...” London, 1803; “An essay upon the execution of the laws against immorality and prophaneness...”, London, 1710; “The Blue Laws of New Haven Colony....”, Hartford, 1838; “Incest, or something very much like it ...”, London, 1832; “Trials for adultery;, or, The history of divorces. Being select trials ... for adultery, cruelty, fornication, impotence, etc. From the year 1760 ....” London, 1779.

Special Collections HQ60 S489. Printed guide consists of alphabetical listings by author and by title.

William H. Bell, (New York City Police Officer, 1850-1851). Diary (Microfilmed from the original in The New York Historical Society. 1 reel)

The diary of this New York City police officer and Inspector of second-hand dealers and junk shops chronicles his activities which centered around inspecting junk shops and dealers in second-hand goods. He has an intimate knowledge of the city’s slum districts, and of crime and poverty. The text is a straight-forward stream-of-consciousness reporting of his activities and impressions. It is accompanied an article by Sean Wilentz’s from the History Workshop Journal which discusses the diary.

Public order, etc. “...contains an extremely interesting and occasionally important collection of letters, papers, and reports addressed ... to Viscount Sidmouth ... and Robert Peel....The documents initially contain much more in the way of mundane affairs than in the nature of public discontent....Even in the initial reel, however, are indications of the turmoil felt in Britain as a result of the political agitation that was becoming less rare after 1815...[one report] described the examination of suspicious crates at the docks in Dover that turned out to be lace-making machinery” [Review in Microform Review, Spring, 1981]