Criminal Victimisation in Eleven Industrialised Countries: Key findings from the 1996 International Crime Victims Survey

By P. Mayhew, and J.J.M. van Dijk.

The International Crime Victimisation Survey (ICVS) is the most far-reaching programme of fully standardised sample surveys looking at householders' experience of crime in different countries. The first ICVS took place in 1989, the second in 1992, and the third in 1996. Surveys have been carried out in over 50 countries since 1989, including a large number of city surveys in developing countries and countries in transition. This report deals with eleven industrialised countries which took part in the third sweep. The reason for setting up the ICVS was the inadequacy of other measures of crime across country. Figures of offences recorded by the police are problematic due to differences in the way the police define, record and count crime. And since most crimes the police know about are reported by victims, police figures can differ simply because of differences in reporting behaviour. It is also difficult to make comparisons of independently organised crime surveys, as these differ in design and coverage. For the countries covered in this report, interviews were mainly conducted by telephone (with samples selected through variants of random digit dialling). There is no reason to think results are biased because of the telephone mode. Response rates varied hut we show that there is no overriding evidence that this affects the count of victimisation. Samples were usually of 1,000 or 2,000 people which means there is a fairly wide sampling error on the ICVS estimates. The surveys cannot, then, give precise estimates of crime in different countries. But they are a unique source of information and give good comparative information. The results in this report relate mainly to respondents' experience of crime in 1995, the year prior to the 1996 survey. Those interviewed were asked about crimes they had experienced, whether or not reported to the police.

The Hague: WODC, 1997. 116p.