The Don M. Gottfredson Library of Criminal Justice constitutes one of the finest special collections of crime and criminal justice materials in the world. The library routinely collects copies of research and statistical reports from many state, federal and international criminal justice agencies. It maintains an extensive collection of dissertations relating to crime and criminal justice completed at American universities. In addition, a significant number of foreign language periodicals and books have been added to the library in recent years. The collection now consists of 80,000 monographs, 7,000 dissertations, 2,500 bound periodicals, 225 subscriptions to journals and periodicals, and 20,000 documents on microfiche.

Originally started by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, the library was purchased by Rutgers University and renamed in 2003 to honor Don M. Gottfredson, the founding dean of the School of Criminal Justice.  The collection is a special collection within the Rutgers Newark Law Library, and primarily serves the academic programs of the School of Criminal Justice and its related institutes.  The library began publishing a freely-accessible gray literature database in 2010, which provides an international clearinghouse for the collection of web-based resources in criminal justice and supplements traditional indexes and library catalogues.  The database contains technical reports, working papers, government and agency reports, and conference proceedings, working papers, and online dissertations.  Another resource associated with the collection is the World Criminal Justice Library Network (WCJLN) website.  The WCJLN website provides criminal justice information on a global scale, including access to member libraries, statistical resources ,  bibliographies, and links to relevant criminal justice agencies.