CRJ 331 | Criminology

Obviously the more notorious the case, the more information you'll locate on it.

Whatever case you choose, however--notorious or not--make sure you give it a test drive. You always want to be sure that further into your research, you'll be able to locate all of the resources you need.  

Google's a good starting place for this.  It'll help you generate ideas for cases--try searching, for example, murder cases and your county, state.  Or...whatever crime interests you and a location. If you throw the word notorious into the mix, you'll get larger cases or cases that have received more attention.  

What other words can you think of to throw into your search (besides notorious) that may garner cases that have received more attention?

• Make sure you can identify the crime, law enforcement, person/persons involved.
• Check to make sure you can find court/legal documents on your case.  You won't always be able to--this is normal.
• Run test searches to see if you can locate media coverage.
• Check to make sure you can find at least three scholarly articles per case that deal a related aspect of this case (criminological theory, outcome, perpetuator, crime, etc.)?

Image source  Google Image, labelled for noncommercial reuse.