Volume of Crime: National Crime Victimization Survey

Victimization rates reported by the National Crime Victimization Survey

(described in Chapter 3) suggest that the crime rate is considerably higher than that

reported by the UCR. The NCVS estimated that 22.9 million criminal victimizations

occurred in 2007, excluding murder, kidnapping, commercial burglary and robbery,

as well as victimless crimes such as drug abuse, prostitution, and drunkenness. These

last crimes are excluded largely due to the cost of data collection and to the difficulty

in securing satisfactory information.

Violent crimes (rape, personal robbery, and assault) accounted for 22.8 percent

of the NCVS victimizations (compared to 13 percent in the UCR). The remaining

77.2 percent of reported victimizations involved property crimes, with thefts from

households accounting for 58.7 percent of all reported victimizations, burglaries

represented another 14.2 percent, and motor vehicle thefts accounted for slightly

more than four percent. Table 4.3 provides a summary of the number and percent

distribution of victimizations found by the NCVS.

Victimization rates are generally reported per 1,000 persons or 1,000 households.

To facilitate comparisons with the UCR, we have converted National Crime

Victimiza- tion Survey (NCVS) figures to rates per 100,000.

 TABLE 4.3

Percent of
Crime Type Number All Crimes Rate1
All Crimes 22,879,700
Personal Crimes 5,371,200 22.7% 2,150
Violent Crimes 5,177,100 22.8% 2,070
Rape/Sexual Assault 248,300 1.1% 100
Robbery 597,300 2.6% 240
Assault 4,331,500 19.1% 1,730
Personal Theft 194,100 0.9% 80
Household Crimes 17,508,500 77.2% 14,650
Burglary 3,215,100 14.1% 2,690
Theft 13,313,800 58.2% 11,140
Auto Theft 979,600 4.2% 820
1
Rate per 100,000 persons age 12 and over or per 100,000 households.

Source: Rand, Michael R. (2008). Criminal Victimization, 2007. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.

Geographical Distribution
NCVS data paint a different picture about the geographic distribution of crime
than that provided by the UCR. Table 4.4 presents information about the distribution of
crime by region and community size. Rural areas, while safer than urban areas, report
higher levels of violent crime than do suburban areas although the difference is not as
great as noted in the UCR. Part of this discrepancy may be attributed to the recording
differences noted in Chapter 3. While crimes occurring in an urban area are reported to
the city police department, the victim may well reside in a suburban area. The crime
will appear in the UCR data as an urban crime while the NCVS will record this as
victimization experienced by a suburbanite. Such recording practices, however, do not
explain the discrepancy between UCR and NCVS data with regard to crime rates in
different geographical areas. Consistent with the UCR data, the NCVS data indicate
that the Northeast has the lowest crime rate. In marked contrast to the UCR, however,
the South does not have the highest rate of violent crime; in fact it is only three-
fourths the rate of violence reported in the West. What accounts for such disparate
findings? Is it a product of the level of police professionalism in these different areas?
Is it an artifact of differential reporting of crime by residents of the western states
relative to those in the southern states? Which measure (the UCR or NCVS) provides
the most accurate picture?
The NCVS also reports that most crimes of violence (robberies and assaults),
occur in a public place such as on the street, in a parking garage, or in a commercial
building. Rape, on the other hand, is most likely to take place in the victim’s
home or some other place known to the victim. Furthermore, almost 63 percent
of rape victims know their assailants and are victimized in their own homes or at
the home of an acquaintance. Victims raped by strangers account for one-third of
victims and,
 Location Crimes of Violence1 Household Property Crime2
All 2,210 15,400
Northeast 2,020 10,390
Midwest 2,370 15,580
South 1,970 14,680
West 2,590 20,650
Urban 3,140 20,000
Suburban 1,910 14,140
Rural 1,730 12,510
1
Rate per 100,000 population age 12 and over.
2
Rate per 100,000 households

Source: U.S Department of Justice (2006) Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2005. Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Justice.

unlike the acquaintance rape victims, are more likely to be victimized in a public place
such as on a street, in a park or playground, or in a commercial establishment.

Volume of Crime: Self-Report Studies

Self-report data (SRD) are not directly comparable to the UCR or NCVS for one
important reason: the only national studies conducted to date have been limited to the
self-reported behavior of youths and young adults. Self-report studies also employ a
different procedure for reporting crime rates than UCR or NCVS. Two measures are
currently in use: prevalence rates and frequency rates. Prevalence refers to the number
of persons in a population that report one or more offenses of a given type within a
specified period. The prevalence rate is typically expressed as a proportion of persons
in the population who have reported some involvement in a particular offense or set
of offenses. Frequency or individual offending rates (also called lambda) refer to the
number of offenses that occur in a given population during a specified time interval.
Individual offending rates may be expressed as an average number of offenses
per person or as the number of offenses per some population base. While prevalence
rates are informative, indicating the number of different persons involved in criminal
acts, individual offending rates are more comparable to the UCR and NCVS data.
The best countrywide self-report data are from the National Youth Survey (see
Chapter 3). Prevalence rates for youths aged 15 to 21 in 1980 indicate that 65 percent
reported committing at least one of the 24 offenses included in a delinquency scale.
The prevalence rate for Index offenses was, however, only 12 percent. Individual
offend- ing rates for 1980 indicate that an average of 32 offenses were committed per
person. The majority of the offenses, however, were status offenses or public disorder
crimes. Serious offenses accounted for only one percent of all reported offenses in
1980. Fur- thermore, the individual offending rate for Index offenses was only 0.6 per
person. With an adolescent population of approximately 29 million, a prevalence rate
of 12 percent suggests that 3.5 million youths commit at least one Index offense per
year.