The Source for Crime and Justice Data

Description & Citation--Study No. 8002

Bibliographic Description

Study No.:

8002

Title:

Commercial Victimization Surveys, 1972-1975 [United States]: Cities Sample

Principal Investigator(s):

United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Bibliographic Citation:

U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. COMMERCIAL VICTIMIZATION SURVEYS, 1972-1975 [UNITED STATES]: CITIES SAMPLE. Conducted by U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 2nd ICPSR ed. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor], 1992. doi:10.3886/ICPSR08002.v2

Scope of Study

Summary:

The National Crime Surveys, of which these Commercial Victimization Surveys are a part, were conducted to obtain current and reliable measures of serious crime in the United States. The Commercial Victimization Surveys are restricted to coverage of burglary and robbery incidents. They include all types of commercial establishments as well as political, cultural, and religious organizations. The survey includes a series of questions about the business, e.g., type and size, form of ownership, insurance, security, and break-in and robbery characteristics. Time and place, weapon, injury, entry evidence, offender characteristics, and stolen property data were collected for each of the incidents. Data on both victimized and nonvictimized establishments in 26 different cities were collected during 1972, 1973, and 1974. In the 1975 survey, data from the 13 cities surveyed during 1972 and 1973 were collected again.

Subject Terms:

armed robbery, burglary, businesses, cities, crime rates, larceny, national crime statistics (USA), offenders, organizations, robbery, security systems, urban crime, victimization

Geographic Coverage:

Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, California, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Houston, Illinois, Los Angeles, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Miami, Michigan, Milwaukee, minneapolis, Minnesota, Missouri, Newark, New Jersey, New Orleans, New York City, New York (state), Oakland, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, St. Louis, Texas, United States, Wisconsin

Time Period:

  • 1972--1975

Date of Collection:

  • 1972--1975

Universe:

Commercial establishments of all types in the following 26 cities during the following four years. 1972 and 1975: Atlanta, Georgia, Baltimore, Maryland, Cleveland, Ohio, Dallas, Texas, Denver, Colorado, Newark, New Jersey, Portland, Oregon, and St. Louis, Missouri. 1973 and 1975: Chicago, Illinois, Detroit, Michigan, Los Angeles, California, New York, New York, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1974: Boston, Massachusetts, Buffalo, New York, Cincinnati, Ohio, Houston, Texas, Miami, Florida, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Minnesota, New Orleans, Louisiana, Oakland, California, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, San Diego, California, San Francisco, California, and Washington, DC.

Data Types:

event/transaction data, and survey data

Data Collection Notes:

These data are contained in 39 hierarchical data files. There are two record types, business records and incident records. Every case has a business record. The number of incident records for a particular case varies according to the number of times (if any) that business had been victimized during the reference period. There are 168 variables.

Methodology

Sample:

Data were obtained from separate samples of business enterprises and organizations in each of the 26 cities through a multistage cluster sample design.

Data Source:

personal interviews

Extent of Processing:

All archived data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. The archive 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, the archive performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Standardized missing values.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Access and Availability

Note:

Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.

Original ICPSR Release:

1984-03-18

Version History:

  • 2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 40 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

  • 2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 40 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

Dataset(s):

  • DS1: 1972, Newark
  • DS2: 1972, St. Louis
  • DS3: 1972, Cleveland
  • DS4: 1972, Dallas
  • DS5: 1972, Atlanta
  • DS6: 1972, Baltimore
  • DS7: 1972, Denver
  • DS8: 1972, Portland, Oregon
  • DS9: 1973, New York
  • DS10: 1973, Philadelphia
  • DS11: 1973, Chicago
  • DS12: 1973, Detroit
  • DS13: 1973, Los Angeles
  • DS14: 1974, Buffalo
  • DS15: 1974, Pittsburgh
  • DS16: 1974, Boston
  • DS17: 1974, Milwaukee
  • DS18: 1974, Minneapolis
  • DS19: 1974, Cincinnati
  • DS20: 1974, Miami
  • DS21: 1974, New Orleans
  • DS22: 1974, Houston
  • DS23: 1974, Washington, D.C.
  • DS24: 1974, San Francisco
  • DS25: 1974, San Diego
  • DS26: 1974, Oakland
  • DS27: 1975, Newark
  • DS28: 1975, St. Louis
  • DS29: 1975, Cleveland
  • DS30: 1975, Dallas
  • DS31: 1975, Atlanta
  • DS32: 1975, Baltimore
  • DS33: 1975, Denver
  • DS34: 1975, Portland, Oregon
  • DS35: 1975, Philadelphia
  • DS36: 1975, New York
  • DS37: 1975, Chicago
  • DS38: 1975, Detroit
  • DS39: 1975, Los Angeles