Consult CQ Researcher Plus Archive, a component of the CQ Press Electronic Library database, to find reports about incarceration and American prisons. Each report is footnoted and includes an overview, background section, chronology, bibliography and debate-style pro-con feature, plus tools to study the evolution of the topic over time. See, for example, Browse Reports > Pro/Con > Death Penalty.
Perform an Advanced search in the library's discovery service to find statistics about U.S. prisons and prisoners. Searching for the terms <prison* statistics "United States"> in the subject field reveals over a thousand sources—articles, government documents, etc.—that incorporate statistics.
The following TCNJ Library databases index and provide full-text access to a range of reference materials of interest to researchers interested in prisoners, prisons, and prison literature.