VICTIMIZATION SURVEY

Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2011

A survey of a random sample of the population in which people are asked to recall and describe their own experience of being a victim of crime.

National Crime Victimization Survey Resource Guide
icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/NCVS/#About_NCVS
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) series, previously called the National Crime Survey (NCS), has been collecting data on personal and household victimization since 1973. An ongoing survey of a nationally representative sample of residential addresses, the NCVS is the primary source of information on the characteristics of criminal victimization and on the number and types of crimes not reported to law enforcement authorities. It provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders. Twice each year, data are obtained from a nationally representative sample of roughly 49,000 households comprising about 100,000 persons on the frequency, characteristics, and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States. The survey is administered by the U.S. Census Bureau (under the U.S. Department of Commerce) on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (under the U.S. Department of Justice).
The NCVS was designed with four primary objectives: (1) to develop detailed information about the victims and consequences of crime, (2) to estimate the number and types of crimes not reported to the police, (3) to provide uniform measures of selected types of crimes, and (4) to permit comparisons over time and types of areas. The survey categorizes crimes as "personal" or "property." Personal crimes cover rape and sexual attack, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and purse-snatching/pocket-picking, while property crimes cover burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and vandalism. The data from the NCVS survey are particularly useful for calculating crime rates, both aggregated and disaggregated, and for determining changes in crime rates from year to year. 

The International Crime Victim Survey
webapp.icpsr.umich.edu/
The International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS) series was developed by the ICVS international working group. Overall funding was provided by the Ministry of Justice of the Netherlands. The project was set up to fill the gap in adequate recording of offenses by the police for purposes of comparing crime rates in different nations and to provide a crime index independent of police statistics as an alternative standardized measure. The ICVS is the most far-reaching program of standardized sample surveys to look at a householders' experience with crime, policing, crime prevention, and feelings of insecurity in a large number of nations.

It also allows for analysis of how risks of crime vary among different groups of populations across social and demographic lines. The first wave, developed by a working group set up in 1987, led to fieldwork in early 1989. The second ICVS wave took place in 1992. Participants in the first ICVS and a number of other nations were invited to participate in the second round in 1992 in order to enlarge the scope of comparisons by increasing the number of industrialized nations, in particular to provide East European nations with the opportunity of improving their understanding of problems of crime and law enforcement, and to implement some improvements in the methodology of the survey. The project was expanded to 13 developing nations and six nations in transition, although the surveys were restricted to the capital cities in most of these. The main purpose was to sensitize local governments to the dimensions and extent of crime in their urban areas. It was also felt that the collection of credible data about criminal victimization in developing nations, which had been previously unavailable, would give a boost to comparative criminology research and theory. The third wave occurred in 1996-1997 and involved 12 industrialized nations, all but one of which were in central and east Europe, and 15 developing nations. The survey also made limited use of some independent national and local surveys. The fourth wave was administered in 2000 in 47 countries.

Juvenile Victimization: Convergent Validation of Alternative Measurements 
L. EDWARD WELLS, JOSEPH H. RANKIN 
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 32, No. 3, 287-307 (1995) DOI: 10.1177/0022427895032003002 © 1995 SAGE Publications
Surveys of crime victims provide a valuable supplement to official record measures of serious crime, enabling a more complete picture of street crime levels and a more dynamic view of crime as interactions between offenders and victims. Initiated in 1973, the National Crime Survey (now called the National Crime Victimization Survey [NCVS]) provides a systematic, reliable, national assessment of crime and constitutes the preferred source of data for many analytic purposes. However, this article suggests that the NCVS is not equally reliable for all types of victims and offenses. The authors compare the NCVS profile of youthful victimization with comparable patterns of events from two other national data sets (the National Youth Survey and Monitoring the Future) that focus specifically on juveniles and their experiences. These comparisons indicate that young persons are less reliably represented in the NCVS due to such factors as sampling frame of the survey, form of the questionnaire interview, and wording of questions. - jrc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/3/287

Exploring the Gender, Race, and Class Dimensions of Victimization: A Left Realist Critique of the Canadian Urban Victimization Survey 
Walter S. DeKeseredy, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6 
Brian D. MacLean, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 2B2 
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 35, No. 2, 143-161 (1991) DOI: 10.1177/0306624X9103500206 © 1991 SAGE Publications
The Canadian Urban Victimization Survey (CUVS) has made an important contribution to the development of victimology in Canada. This research has major limitations that preclude it from providing an adequate understanding of the gender, class, and ethnic dimensions of criminal victimization. This article argues that British left realist survey technology can be productively employed in a Canadian program of local crime survey research to produce a more detailed description of patterns of victimization, its impact, and control. - ijo.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/35/2/143

Criminological Research in Contemporary China 
Challenges and Lessons Learned From a Large-Scale Criminal Victimization Survey 
Lening Zhang, Saint Francis University, Loretto, Pennsylvania, lzhang@francis.edu 
Steven F. Messner, University at Albany, New York 
Jianhong Lu, Rhode Island College, Providence 
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 51, No. 1, 110-121 (2007) DOI: 10.1177/0306624X06294430 © 2007 SAGE Publications
This article discusses research experience gained from a large-scale survey of criminal victimization recently conducted in Tianjin, China. The authors review some of the more important challenges that arose in the research, their responses to these challenges, and lessons learned that might be beneficial to other scholars who are interested in conducting criminological research in China. Their experience underscores the importance of understanding the Chinese political, cultural, and academic context, and the utility of collaborating with experienced and knowledgeable colleagues "on site." Although there are some special difficulties and barriers, their project demonstrates the feasibility of original criminological data collection in China. - ijo.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/51/1/110

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