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National Crime Victimization Survey, 2007 [Record-Type Files] (ICPSR 25141)

Principal Investigator(s): United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Summary:

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) Series, previously called the National Crime Surveys (NCS), has been collecting data on personal and household victimization through an ongoing survey of a nationally-representative sample of residential addresses since 1973. 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 include rape and sexual attack, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and purse-snatching/pocket-picking, while property crimes include burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and vandalism. Each respondent is asked a series of screen questions designed to determine whether she or he was victimized during the six-month period preceding the first day of the month of the interview. A "household respondent" is also asked to report on crimes against the household as a whole (e.g., burglary, motor vehicle theft). The data include type of crime, month, time, and location of the crime, relationship between victim and offender, characteristics of the offender, self-protective actions taken by the victim during the incident and results of those actions, consequences of the victimization, type of property lost, whether the crime was reported to police and reasons for reporting or not reporting, and offender use of weapons, drugs, and alcohol. Basic demographic information such as age, race, gender, and income is also collected, to enable analysis of crime by various subpopulations.

Series: National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) Series

Access Notes

  • These data are freely available.

Dataset(s)

WARNING: This study is over 150MB in size and may take several minutes to download on a typical internet connection.

DS0:  Study-Level Files
Documentation:
Codebook.pdf
DS1:  Address Record-Type File
DS2:  Household Record-Type File
DS3:  Person Record-Type File
DS4:  Incident Record-Type File
DS5:  2007 Incident-Level Extract File

Study Description

Citation

United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Crime Victimization Survey, 2007 [Record-Type Files]. ICPSR25141-v3. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2009-08-24. doi:10.3886/ICPSR25141.v3

Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR25141.v3

Export Citation:

  • RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
  • EndNote XML (EndNote X4.0.1 or higher)

Funding

This survey was funded by:

  • United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Scope of Study

Subject Terms:   assault, auto theft, burglary, crime, crime costs, crime rates, crime reporting, crime statistics, offenders, offenses, property crimes, rape, reactions to crime, robbery, sexual offenses, vandalism, victimization, victims

Smallest Geographic Unit:   region

Geographic Coverage:   United States

Time Period:  

  • 2007

Date of Collection:  

  • 2007
  • 2008

Unit of Observation:   household, individual, crime incident

Universe:   All persons in the United States aged 12 and over.

Data Types:   survey data

Data Collection Notes:

The 2007 Incident-Level Extract File was created from the record-type files and includes information on victims of crime. Nonvictims are not included. Records were extracted from the Incident Record-Type File and bounded by the year that the incident occurred. These records were then merged to their parent records from the Person Record-Type and Household Record-Type files.

The data were collected by the United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.

Methodology

Sample:   Stratified multistage cluster sample.

Weight:   The data files include several weight variables used to calculate national estimates of: households, persons, victimizations, and incidents. The codebook describes how to use the weights.

Mode of Data Collection:   computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI), face-to-face interview, telephone interview

Extent of Processing:  ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Performed consistency checks.
  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.
  • Standardized missing values.
  • Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:  2009-04-07

Version History:

  • 2009-08-24 The data collection was updated to reflect resupplied data provided by the United States Census Bureau.
  • 2009-06-08 Data values for variables V2073, V4384 and V4385 were updated by census.

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