Victimisation Survey
Definition
A survey that asks a random population sample about crimes experienced in a reference period, regardless of whether those incidents were reported to police. Used to estimate crime volume independently of official recording. Examples include the US National Crime Victimization Survey and the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
- Field
- Criminology, crime measurement
- Method
- Random population sample self-reports crime experience
- Independent of
- Police recording and reporting decisions
- US example
- National Crime Victimization Survey
- UK example
- Crime Survey for England and Wales
Common questions
Why do victimisation surveys usually report higher crime rates than police statistics?+
They capture the 'dark figure of crime,' incidents victims experienced but never reported to police, whether because the harm seemed minor, they feared retaliation, they distrusted the process, or the crime involved shame such as sexual offences.
What kinds of crime do victimisation surveys tend to underrepresent?+
Victimless or consensual offences such as drug use, crimes against businesses or institutions rather than individuals, homicide by definition since the victim cannot respond, and crimes against people outside the sampled household population such as the homeless.
How often are major national victimisation surveys typically conducted?+
Most run on a continuous or annual rolling basis with periodic published estimates, allowing trend comparison over time, though the exact cycle and sample size differ between national programmes.
Related terms
- Dark Figure of Crime
- The gap between the actual volume of crime and the amount recorded in official statistics. Crimes go unrecorded when victims do not...
- CompStat
- A police management and accountability system first implemented by the New York City Police Department in 1994. CompStat uses regularly updated crime...
- Crime Hotspot
- A small geographic area where crime incidents cluster at a rate significantly higher than surrounding areas over a defined time period. Hotspot...
- CSEW (Crime Survey for England and Wales)
- The principal victimisation survey in England and Wales, conducted by the Office for National Statistics since 1982. Interviews around 35,000 adults annually...
- Geographic Information System (GIS)
- Software that stores, analyses, and visualises data tied to geographic coordinates. In crime analysis, GIS platforms such as ArcGIS or the open-source...
- NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey)
- The principal victimisation survey in the United States, administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics since 1973. Interviews approximately 240,000 individuals in...
- Recording Rate
- The proportion of crimes known to police that are formally entered into official statistics. Recording rates below 100% produce a secondary dark...
- Self-Report Study
- A research method in which respondents are asked to disclose offences they have committed, whether or not those offences resulted in arrest...
- Telescoping
- A memory error in which respondents misplace events in time, typically drawing incidents from outside the reference period into it (forward telescoping),...
Explained in these topics
- The Dark Figure of Crime and Crime Mapping
- Victimisation and Self-Report SurveysA sample survey that asks respondents about their own experiences of crime during a reference period, regardless of whether those incidents were reported to th...