This guide is intended to assist researchers in the field of Law and Forensic Psychology.

If you need help, please contact Andrea Cameron, Liaison Librarian for Psychology, Urban Studies, Public Policy at Bennett Library (M-T): 778.782.3139 / Belzberg Library (W-F): 778.782.5051 or amcamero@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Books

Books related to law and forensic psychology are spread among several call number areas of the library: psychology, criminology, women's studies, and even sociology. To make sure that every book of possible use is located, we recommend:

• identify the key issues of your research, e.g. "eyewitness testimony"
• conducting a "word search" for those key concepts in the SFU Library catalogue,
• examine the titles in the resulting list,
• choose to see the full record for the book most closely matching your interest.
• examine the subject headings for that book
• click the one most closely matching your interest to see a list of books on that subject.

Journal articles

Use these indexes to locate journal articles on your topic.

PsycINFO

A comprehensive database used for research in the field of psychology. References books, articles, and other documents.

PsycARTICLES

APA and CPA journals in online full text.

PsycBOOKS

APA books and chapters, plus the Encyclopedia of Psychology, in online full text.

Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text

Identifies articles in criminology journals. Articles may include both psychological and legal information.

Digital Dissertations

Full text access to PhD and Master's theses in all subject areas.

Handbook of Psychology

Comprehensive handbook covering all aspects of psychology.

LawSource

Current Canadian legal information

Note: From the "Custom Search Templates" area within LawSource, you can choose particular subsets. For example: "Index to Canadian Legal Literature", "Law Reports, Articles and Journals", "Words & Phrases", etc.

LegisInfo

Information about individual Canadian federal government bills.

NCJRS: National Criminal Justice Reference Service

All aspects of law enforcement, crime prevention and security, criminal justice, and juvenile justice.

QP Legaleze

Current BC statutes and regulations.

Web of Science

A combined search of all of the Web of Science Citation indexes.

BC Laws

BC Laws provides free public access to the current laws of British Columbia. This unofficial current consolidation of BC Statutes and Regulations is updated continually as new and amended laws come into force.

BestCase

Contains Canadian law reports.

Criminal Spectrum

Contains Canadian law reports, legislation, citator, topical indexes and commentary

LexisNexis

International news coverage, business news, legal cases and law reports.

Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology

Comprehensive coverage of the latest research findings, as well as the most recent contributions in experimental psychology and methodology.

Women's Human Rights Resources Database WHRR

Women's human rights/issues, international coverage of issues. Some full-text.

 

Law reports

Law reports are decisions or judgements handed down by judges at the end of cases. Law reports are made available from the court where the case was heard, either on the court web site or in printed form.. Commercial publishers also make selected law reports available, often grouped by subject, e.g. family law, labour law, criminal law.

• Only significant cases which clarify the law or set precedents, i.e. cases which have been appealed and tried again at the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court level, are reported in law reports.
• Some cases may be reported in several different law report series. Because each publication will give the exact words of the judge or judges, the text will always be the same.
• Cases which have been settled at the first level of court will not be published. (Transcripts of these cases can be obtained from the court where the case was tried for a per page fee.)
• Not every case mentioned in the media will be reported in a law report.

SFU Library has extensive holdings of Canadian law reports in paper format and online. The online guide Law Reports at the SFU Library lists all the SFU Library holdings and links out to key online Canadian and American law reports. Other complete law reports not listed in the guide are available in LawSource and in the Lexis-Nexis database.

Citations to law reports follow a standardized format, with the elements usually appearing in this order:

• plaintiff v. defendent, the party which laid the complaint versus the person defending themselves,
• Plaintiff listed as "R." =Regina= "the Crown"
• year the decision was handed down
• volume number of the law report series
• abbreviated title of the law report series
• series number (if the law report has continued into a second series and begun renumbering)
• page number where the specific law report begins
• abbreviated name of the court

Researchers looking for law reports may be starting from a citation, starting with the names of the plaintiff and the defendant, starting with a subject of interest, or starting with a specific statute.

Starting from a citation:

• Examine the citation to find the law report title. For example, in the citation R. v. Enden (1961), 35 C.R. 198 the law report title is C.R.
• Do a journal title search in the SFU Library catalogue to find the call number or online link. Even the abbreviation works so a journal title search for C.R. will find the call number for this law report series even if one does not know that the full title of C.R. is Criminal Reports.
• OR
• Look up the title in the guide Law Reports in the SFU Library to find the call number and location
• OR
• Look in the LawSource database
• OR
• Look on the web site for the court where the case was heard
• OR
• Look in the Lexis-Nexis database

Starting with the names of the plaintiff and the defendant:

References in books or popular magazines sometimes give only the names of the plaintiff and defendent. If the case is recent, and the names are not common, a search on the web may work, but if a case has gone through several levels of courts too many references will be retrieved.

A search by case in the LawSource database is an excellent way to retrieve Canadian cases. For a most effective search, put the case name in quotation marks, e.g. "R. v. Parks". The Canadian Abridgement Consolidated Table of Cases KE 173 C346 in the Reference Collection gives the same information as LawSource but is no longer being updated so use it only for older cases. .

Starting from a subject of interest:

To find law reports related to a subject of specific interest there are several options:

• Look at the list of references at the end of a journal article or a book on a specificto find references to representative law reports on that topic.
• Key volume of the Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (Western) KE 173 C36 1978 Reference Collection provides a subject index to the short articles in this encyclopedia, and most articles include a citation for a relevant law report
• Key volume of the Canadian Abridgement Case Digests KE 173 C353 Reference Collection provides table of contents for sets of digests or summaries of law reports, including reported decisions from courts in all common law provinces.
• Tip: Both the Canadian Encylopedic Digest and the Canadian Abridgement Case Digests are very useful. Lawyers often prefer one or the other based on their law school and articling experience.

Starting from a specific statute:

To find law reports that interpret or clarify specific statutes there are several options:

• Statutes Key in the key volume of Canadian Encyclopedia Digest (Western) KE 173 C36 1978 Reference Collection indexes the set by statute or act
• LawSource database, under the KeyCiteCanada link, is the online equivalent of Canadian Abridgement Statutes Judicially Considered and Canadian Abridgement Canadian Statutes Citations and groups cases related to specific laws or statutes KE 173 C353 Reference Collection
• Canadian Statute Citator KE 106 C35 1985 Reference Collection lists Canadian statutes referred to in legal cases and gives references for the law reports for those cases
• British Columbia Statute Citator KEB 60 B7 Reference Collection lists BC statutes referred to in legal cases and gives references for the law reports for those cases
• annotated statutes are published for many of the Canadian statutes most frequently considered in the courts, giving the text of the statute or act and listing the cases which have clarified the meaning of the statute or act, e.g. Martin's Criminal Code KE 8804.523 A18 M35 Reserves or Crankshaw's Criminal Code KE 8804 S26 C73 Reference Collection
• other annotated statutes may be available; try a keyword search in the SFU Library catalogue using a word from the title of the act and truncated word annotat*, e.g. copyright and annotat*

Definitions and Background Information

• LawSource database, under the Canadian Encyclopedia Digest link
• Black's law dictionary. 5th ed. KF 156 B53 1999 Bennett Reference
• Canadian law dictionary. KE 183 C37 1980 Bennett Reference
• Canadian law dictionary. KE 183 Y63 1990 Bennett Reference
• Collins dictionary of law
• Collection of definitions in federal statutes. Bennett Reference KE 184 G68 1989
• Dictionary of law Mostly English and European law.
• Duhaime's law dictionary
• Encyclopedia of forensic sciences
• Latin words & phrases for lawyers. K 50 L35 1980 Bennett Reference
• Multilingual legal dictionary, also known as VCC Legal terminology dictionary
• Oran's dictionary of the law. Bennett Reference KF 156 O4 1991
• Webster's dictionary of legal, lawful, and propaganda terms.

Electronic journals and texts

The Electronic Journals Database provides access to fulltext of electronic journals available to SFU Library users, on the web and through selected periodical indexes. A list of online journals related to law and forensic psychology is updated monthly.This list is an excellent place to browse but for a focused search for articles on a specific subject is is always best to use article indexes and databases. The LawSource database includes some additional fulltext journals under the Law Reports Articles and Journals link.

Associations and organizations

• American Academy of Forensic Psychology
• American Psychology Law Society (APA)
• Australia and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law
• BC Institute Against Family Violence
• Canadian Bar Association
• Canadian Law and Society Association
• European Association of Psychology and Law (EAP&L)
• Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission (BC)
• International Association of Forensic Mental Health
• Law Society of Upper Canada
• Mental Health, Law and Psychology Institute
• Scholarly Societies: Law.

Government information

British Columbia

• BC Statutes KEB 41 B75 Reference Collection
• BC Statutes online linked from the Queen's Printer (but is not the most current version)
• QP Legaleze BC Statutes online (the most current version)
• BC Superior Courts (BC Supreme Court and the BC Court of Appeal) including text of judgements

Canada

• Canadian Statutes KE 89 1981 C341 Reference Collection
• Canadian Statutes online linked from the Department of Justice, including the Criminal Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• Supreme Court of Canada

Directories of web sites

• Access to Justice Network maintained by Legal Studies at University of Alberta
• BC Courthouse Library Society maintains a web site linking to many BC legal resources
• Electronic Law Library maintained by the Legal Resource Centre of Legal Services Society of British Columbia
• CanLII Canadian Legal Information Institute maintained by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada
• LawConnection: Current Issues in Law maintained by the Centre for Education Law and Society at SFU
• Links to Legal Resources maintained by the Bora Laskin Law Library University of Toronto

Style Guides

Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. 5th edition. Extensive information about APA style, the format used by Psychology students and scholars for bibliographies and footnotes. Appendix D of the Publication Manual provides many examples of citations of legal cases. BF76.7 P83 1994 Bennett Reference, Bennett Reserves, Bennett Circulating, Belzberg Reserves, Belzberg Library

See also the guide to "Legal Citation" from Queens University for Canadian examples.

APA Style for Research Reports.
A guide to APA style for undergraduate papers prepared by the SFU Psychology Department.

APA Style.org. Electronic reference formats recommended by the American Psychological Association. Formats for citing online journal articles, electronic mail, and web sites.