National Crime Victimization Survey, Concatenated File, [United States], 1992-2016: Revised Version (ICPSR 37241)

Version Date: Aug 24, 2020

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

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37241.v2

Version V2 ()

  • V2 [2020-08-24]
  • V1 [2019-10-31] unpublished
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Summary

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), previously called the National Crime Survey (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. Beginning in 1992, the survey categorizes crimes as "personal" or "property." Personal crimes include rape and sexual assault, 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.

This dataset represents the revised concatenated version of the NCVS on a collection year basis for 1992-2016. A collection year contains records from interviews conducted in the 12 months of the given year. Under the collection year format, victimizations are counted in the year the interview is conducted, regardless of the year when the crime incident occurred.

The 2016 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) violent and property crime estimates were significantly higher than 2015, but it was not possible to determine the degree to which the change in rates resulted from the sample redesign rather than real changes in U.S. victimization levels. Therefore, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) examined the 2015 and 2016 victimization rates separately for new and continuing sample counties in the 2016 Criminal Victimization bulletin.

The BJS requested that the U.S. Census Bureau create a 2016 revised file with outgoing county interviews from July-December 2015, continuing county interviews from January-June 2016, and all interviews (continuing and new counties) from July-December 2016. In other words, the outgoing 2015 cases replaced the new 2016 cases in the first half of 2016. The files in this study serve as a separate research file to allow data users to make comparisons between 2015, 2016, and 2017 NCVS estimates using a nationally representative sample. It provides a sample that still represents the entire country but does not have the inflated crime rates seen in the new counties in 2016.

For additional information on the dataset, please see the documentation for the data from the most current year of the NCVS, ICPSR Study 37296.

Citation

United States. Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Crime Victimization Survey, Concatenated File, [United States], 1992-2016: Revised Version. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2020-08-24. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37241.v2

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Funding

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

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

region

Restrictions

This data collection may not be used for any purpose other than statistical reporting and analysis. Use of these data to learn the identity of any person or establishment is prohibited.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1992 -- 2016

Date of Collection

1992 -- 2016

Data Collection Notes

  1. In February 2018, several errors in classifying cases on the collapsed occupation code variable (V4482B) were discovered. The corrected data are only included in the NCVS 1992-2017 concatenated data file (study number 37198). Data users should download these files if they want to use this variable. More information on the corrected data are in the 1992-2017 codebook. The incorrect data are still in the NCVS 2011-2016 collection year and concatenated year files.

  2. In 2016, the NCVS sample was redesigned. Working with the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Justice Statistics devised a methodology for creating the revised 2016 NCVS data file to allow for comparisons between the 2016 data and prior (and future) data years. This study includes revised data from a previously published study (ICPSR 36834). Please see the revised 2016 codebook (ICPSR 37296) for more information on those changes.

  3. The 2016 concatenated files were created from the Household, Person, and Incident-Level collection year files and include information on victims of crime; nonvictims are not included.

  4. Beginning with 2011, data contain replicate weights for household, person, incident, and victimization to facilitate standard error computations given the sampling design of NCVS.

  5. Beginning with 2012, the data have a change in how the victimization totals are computed. Series crimes are now included with up to 10 occurrences.

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

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Sample

Stratified multistage cluster sample.

Time Method

Longitudinal

Universe

All persons in the United States aged 12 and older.

Unit(s) of Observation

crime incident, individual, household

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

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Original Release Date

2019-10-31

Version History

2020-08-24 Additional contextual information provided for variable V4532 in the codebook on when the variable should be used.

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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.

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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.