LibGuides: Criminal Justice Research Guide: Find Criminal Justice Videos

Streaming Video Databases

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The library provides access to two Kanopy collections: Criterion Collection and the Media Education Foundation Collection. Other titles are available on the Kanopy platform via faculty/instructor request.
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- For a list of licensed titles and expiration dates, click here: LIST OF TITLES
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Crime and Policing Videos

After the game Police search for drugs in a house where they arrest a group of boys who return from a basketball game and are accused of having a loud party and sniffing glue.
Publication Date: 1973
Chiefs Filmed at the October 1968 meeting in Hawaii of several hundred police chiefs of the International Association of Chiefs of Police as they watch demonstrations of gruesome anti-riot weapons, sing patriotic songs, and defend their policies in front of the camera. Although filmed with the permission of the chiefs, the view is not sympathetic, sometimes funny, and more often frightening.
Publication Date: 2009
Every mother's son Story of three mothers, Iris Baez, Kadiatou Diallo, and Doris Busch Boskey, fighting for justice for their sons, Anthony Raymond Baez, Amadou Diallo, and Gary (Gidone) Busch. All three men were killed by police.
Call Number: DVD -- HV8148.N5 E9479 2004b
Publication Date: 2004
Inside/outside station nine A number of short sequences show some of the events and people in the daily lives of several policemen: their intervention in domestic quarrels, the handling of a hit-and-run case, the approaches taken toward loitering youths, a drunk and disorderly charge being made in Magistrate's Court, and the interrogation of a burglary suspect. Police force candidates are shown being interviewed by members of the police department. Filmed in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Publication Date: 1970
Scenes of a crime " ... explores how modern police interrogation tactics (including lies, threats and false evidence) place extraordinary pressures on suspects, and can encourage an innocent person to confess falsely."
Call Number: DVD -- HV8073.3 .S346 2012
Publication Date: 2012
The House I Live In The house I live in / a film by Eugene Jarecki ; an Edgewood Way production ; Charlotte Street Films presents ; a co-production of BBC Storyville/ITVS/ZDF ; executive producers, Joslyn Barnes, Nick Fraser, Danny Glover, John Legend, Brad Pitt, Russell Simmons ; produced by Eugene Jarecki, Melinda Shopsin ; written and directed by Eugene Jarecki ; executive producers, Roy Ackerman, David Alcaro ; producers, Sam Cullman, Christopher St. John ; produced in association with NHK Japan, SBS-TV Australia, Louverture, Al Jazeera Documentary Channel, VPRO.
Call Number: DVD HV5825 .H67874 2013
Publication Date: 2013
Tulia, Texas In 1999, undercover narcotics agent Thomas Coleman was called in by Tulia's sheriff to conduct a sting operation. Of the 46 people indicted for dealing cocaine, 39 were black. Eight were convicted and sentenced to jail terms of 20 to 99 years. Thirty-eight agreed to plea bargains. After three years, attorneys finally won a hearing before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. On June 16, 2003, thirteen Tulia defendants were released from prison. Eventually, all the defendants were pardoned by the Governor. Coleman was found guilty of perjury, but was given a suspended sentence by the jury.
Publication Date: 2008
You wasn't loitering This film treats the problem of loitering. In a number of sequences, police warn youths, police administrators discuss enforcement of loitering laws, officers are insulted, and several youths are arrested. Filmed in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Publication Date: 1973

Juvenile Justice Videos

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If I could Documentary film about a family's effort to escape the effects of trauma after decades of abuse, abandonment, drugs, and rage. Follows the life of Tracy, a single mother fighting to keep her son from falling prey to the same problems that almost destroyed her through intervention of a program called VisionQuest.
Call Number: DVD -- HV6626.52 .I3 2006
Girl trouble "In the past decade, the San Francisco youth crime rate declined, the number of GIRLS in the Juvenile Justice System more than doubled. This film follows four years in the lives of three teenage girls caught up in San Francisco's Juvenile Justice System."--title screens. This documentary tells the compelling stories of Stephanie, Shangra, and Sheila, opening a window onto the juvenile justice system, exposing its failure to break the cycle of poverty, crime, and incarceration that consumes vulnerable young women. Two programs are hightlighted: The Walden House SisterKin Project and The Center for Young Women's Development's Sisters Rising internship program, for pushing the boundaries when it comes to helping girls in the system, addressing issues like sexual abuse, self-esteem, and community as part of the healing process for young women.
Call Number: DVD -- HV6046 .G56375 2004
Publication Date: 2004
Juvenile justice Frontline explores whether children who commit serious crimes should be tried as juveniles or adults. The program shows what can happen to young offenders who reach the "end of the line" in the juvenile court system and how these children can be rehabilitated to prevent future criminal behavior.
Call Number: Streaming
Publication Date: 2000
The heart broken in half: a documentary An in-depth look at the street gangs of the Albany Park neighborhood in Chicago and the socio-economic conditions that give rise to them. Includes comments by neighborhood residents, interviews with several young gang members, scenes from the funeral and burial of a gang member who was killed in the street, and an extensive analysis of the intricate network of symbols, logos and icons, expressed in graffiti, that serve the gangs as a complex visual code for displaying identity and challenging rivals.
Call Number: DVD -- HV6439.U5 H43 1990
The lost children behind bars This is a report about Juvenile correction facilitites and specifically focuses on one in Phoenix, Arizona called the Black Canyon School.
Call Number: DVD -- HV9104 .L678 2006
Publication Date: 2006
When kids get life The United States is one of the only countries in the world that allows children under 18 to be sentenced to life without parole. This program profiles the cases of five juveniles sentenced in Colorado to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It explores whether juveniles should receive sentences that, in effect, end any possibility of life outside of prison.
Call Number: DVD -- HV9105.C6 W446 2007
Publication Date: 2007
Why youth join gangs This video includes interviews with gang researchers, practitioners, and young people who were previously involved in gangs. Gain insight about why youth join gangs by hearing firsthand accounts, learn the behaviors and the circumstances that you might observe when interacting with youth who are at high risk of joining a gang.
Call Number: Streaming
Publication Date: 2013

Prisons & Corrections Videos

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A sentence apart This film follows three stories of people coping with a family member in prison, attempting to bridge broken relationships, and diligently working to break the generational cycle of incarceration
Call Number: DVD -- HV8886.U5 S468 2010
Publication Date: 2010
Engineering supermax prisons Prisons today have to deal with violent prisoners that refuse to obey the rules. In an effort to protect the staff and other inmates engineers have had to design and build high-tech super-maximum security units. Examples shown of the new SuperMax Prisons include California's Pelican Bay Prison and Massachusetts' Souza Baranowski Prison.
Call Number: DVD -- HV8005 .E5456 2004
Publication Date: 2005
Lockup: inside America's prisons "With extraordinary access to several correctional facilities, this six-part MSNBC series looks at the world of the incarcerated--from the inside out. Each episode records the hopes, fears, regrets, and occasional rehabilitation of jailed convicts, while presenting commentary from wardens, corrections officers, and medical personnel. The result is a comprehensive, hard-hitting examination of life behind bars in America."--Containers.
Call Number: DVDs -- HV9471 .L635 2008
Publication Date: 2008
Sin by silence Tells the story of Convicted Women Against Abuse, an inmate-led group in a California prison, and its quest to raise awareness about domestic abuse.
Call Number: DVD -- HV6626.2 .S5539 2009
Publication Date: 2009
The experiment "This ... four part series ... updates the controversial 1971 Stanford prison experiment, Dr. Philip Zimbardo's inquiry into the power of social situations to distort identify and erode moral behavior. Each ... episode explores different aspects of the dynamic interplay between the study's prisoners and guards, dealing with issues of leadership and negotiation, conflict and cooperation, work and stress, tyranny and resistance, power and powerlessness ..."--Container label.
Call Number: DVD -- HV6089 .E9747 2004 v.1
Publication Date: 2004
What I want my words to do to you: voices from a maximum security women's prison Look into the minds and hearts of women inmates of a New York prison. Go inside a writing workshop led by Eve Ensler, where the women create works of poetry and prose which ends in the performance of their writing by critically acclaimed actors.
Call Number: DVD -- PS508.P7 W43 2003
Publication Date: 2003

Social Issues Videos

The African Americans
Call Number: DVD -- E185 .A25845 2014
Publication Date: 2014
Black like who? In this painfully honest documentary, filmmaker Debbie Reynolds explores themes of assimilation, internalized racism and self hatred. Debbie is a black student who grew up in a white neighborhood, went to white schools, had white friends, and did not think about being black. As she grew older and left home, her new friends at college noticed her inability to relate easily to other blacks. Debbie realized she had a troubling identity problem and she searched for its origins within her family. Interviewing her parents, she learns that her father's middle class aspirations led him to a tidy white suburb, safe from drugs and crime. Yet he recalls his amazement when six-year-old Debbie did not realize she was black. In retrospect, her mother mourns that they did not instill black pride in their children. Debbie questions her fellow black students about what it means to be black. "We are all searching," they say. Even those who grew up with a strong black identity are still not clear how they fit into the larger society. They each struggle to understand how their race and ethnicity shape their sense of self. This is a unique film to spark discussion on racial identity.
Call Number: Streaming
Publication Date: 1997
Concrete steel & paint "Concrete, Steel, and Paint" offers a comprehensive view of crime and its victims, punishment, and the importance of dialogue for bringing disparate, resentful groups of people together to affirm their common humanity. The film chronicles the complications that occurred when two Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, artists tried to bring together inmates of Graterford maximum-security prison and residents of Fairhill, a poor, violent neighborhood from which many of the inmates hail, to create a mural. The film emphasizes power of creativity and the ability of art to offer a channel of communication for people who desperately need it.
Call Number: DVD -- KF1328 .C6637 2009
Publication Date: 2009
The Latino Americans
Call Number: Streaming
Publication Date: 2013
Slavery by another name
Call Number: Streaming
Publication Date: 2012
The state of Arizona
Call Number: Streaming
Publication Date: 2014