Surveying Victims Options for Conducting the National Crime Victimization Survey (2008) / Chapter Skim
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3 Current Demands and Constraints on the National Crime Victimization Survey
3 Current Demands and Constraints on the National Crime Victimization Survey
Pages 41-80
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From page 41... ...
. We begin in Section 3–A by discussing survey nonresponse, an emerging challenge facing modern surveys of all types, including federal surveys like the NCVS.
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From page 42... ...
as of 2005, the NCVS enjoys response and participation rates that are highly desirable relative to other victimization and social surveys. However, the NCVS response rates have declined over the past decade; in 1996, the NCVS household- and person-level response rates were 93 and 91 percent, respectively (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2006a)
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. A notable exception to the pattern of declining response rates in federal surveys is the American Community Survey (ACS)
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As we discuss in Section 5–B, it is an open question whether the administration of the NCVS by the U.S. Census Bureau is a net positive or negative (or neither)
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It is important to note that nonresponse rates are only proxy indicators of one aspect of the quality of NCVS estimates. The key issue is whether the propensity to be successfully measured among NCVS sample members is correlated with the likelihood of victimization.
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as a function of nonresponse rates and the difference between respondent and nonrespondent means. Increas
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The NCVS unit response rate is such that this threshold has not been crossed; still, we know of no effort by BJS or the Census Bureau to mount a full nonresponse bias study for the NCVS. 3–B CHALLENGES OF SELF-RESPONSE IN MEASURING VICTIMIZATION 3–B.1 Cognitive Challenges: Telescoping and Forgetting As noted above, the NCVS emerged from the National Crime Survey only after several years of conceptual development and methodological research.
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From page 48... ...
The panel notes that the design features of the reference period, the cuing mechanisms of the screener questions, the nature of the incident reports, and the use of the bounding interview technique are mutually connected. It is difficult to evaluate one of these features without simultaneously considering the others.
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From page 49... ...
For example, before the 1992 switch to a redesigned instrument, the National Crime Survey produced estimates of domestic violence that were an order of magnitude smaller than those produced by other surveys.2 Similar results obtain 2 Bachman and Taylor (1994) compared the then-available estimates of family violence against women from the NCVS to results from the National Family Violence Survey (NFVS)
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suggest several explanations for the discrepancy between the data sources: the NVAWS may elicit more victimizations by asking about rapes and assaults more explicitly: the NVAWS may be more vulnerable to telescoping, in which incidents outside the reference period are included; or the two data sources may diverge because of their measurement of recurring victimization. As a one-time, single-interview survey, the NVAWS had no capacity for bounding responses, "suggesting that [NVAWS]
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. (Response rates in the NVAWS are also much lower than the NCVS, although it is difficult to know what biases might result.)
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The change in threshold provides for somewhat fuller accounting of crime types in which repeated victimization may occur; as in the previous section, domestic violence and intimate partner violence are examples in which this may apply. We know of no research that has estimated the effect of the redesign on the reporting of series victimizations -- that is, over and above the emphasis on more effective screening and elicitation of incidents, whether the NCVS instrument is more likely to generate reports of crimes for which series victimization rules would apply.
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From page 53... ...
Still other factors that contributed to the delay resulted from the fact that the survey had not yet been fully computer-automated because of persistent budget difficulties. To some extent, the perceived slowness in implementing new measures and rigidity in approach have been attributed to the Census Bureau as the data collector for the NCVS and other federal surveys.
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By comparison, even though the survey is now fully computerized, Census Bureau representatives noted that a two year lead time should be considered typical. In practical terms, the slowness of the process at the Census Bureau has made the NCVS less flexible than victimization surveys in other countries and, in turn, less responsive to shortterm needs for information about victimization and its outcomes.
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From page 55... ...
ACASI has been implemented for some modules on the British Crime Survey, but it has not been used in other victimization surveys, nor has it been used in other Census Bureau demographic surveys. However, it is notable that many federal government surveys contracted to the private sector that measure sensitive attributes use ACASI; these include the National Medical Care Expenditure Survey, the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, and the National Survey of Family Growth.
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3–D.1 SAC Network Since its creation, BJS has supported state efforts to collect, analyze, and report criminal justice statistics through what was initially known as the Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) program.
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In addition, three experienced SAC directors appeared before the panel to discuss the NCVS and victimization research needs.3 Findings from the SAC survey indicate that victimization surveys are a valuable tool for policy makers and other users at the state and local levels. However, although the NCVS fulfills some of this need, it increasingly is not able to address issues of contemporary importance to victim services agencies, legislatures, advocacy groups, researchers, and governmental policy makers.
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3–D.3 Need for Finer Level Estimates Although the survey of state SACs suggested continued interest in national estimates from the NCVS, it also clearly suggested a need and desire for victimization data and related information at the state and in some cases city or regional level. The national victimization measures contained in the current NCVS are generally useful as a triangulation tool, but they do not address the need for data at the state or local level given lack of the ability
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State Victimization Surveys In the absence of state-level estimates produced directly from the NCVS, about half of the state SACs have conducted a victimization survey of their own in recent years. Although the methods of these surveys vary somewhat, most replicate basic questions in the NCVS, primarily because those questions have been tested and validated over time and provide a basis for comparison with the NCVS.
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, effectively replicating the basic NCVS content. Victimization surveys conducted at the state and local levels generally have not produced the level of statistical precision required for estimation used by the NCVS or similarly constructed surveys.
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As an example, estimates from the Vermont Victimization Survey trended well with measures based on the NCVS sample from rural areas; hence, use of a "rural NCVS" analysis would be sufficient and more cost-effective than conducting an original study in Vermont on a regular basis. Have Local Needs for Victimization Data Changed?
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Such crimes as hate crimes or stalking, which were not part of the criminological lexicon when the NCVS was developed, illustrate how the environment and conceptualization of victimization have changed. Understanding the general victimization rate for purposes of correlation with police-reported crime rates is still important at the state and local levels, primarily for assessing crime trends and patterns.
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Victimization data may not be able to comment specifically on the efficacy of particular programs, but over the long term these data are critical to understanding larger impacts of policies on crime and victimization patterns. 3–E VALUING VICTIMIZATION INFORMATION: COMPARING THE COST OF VICTIMIZATION MEASUREMENT WITH BENCHMARKS Arguably, the most significant challenge faced by the NCVS -- and largest constraint on its survival -- is the availability of funding resources.
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From page 64... ...
There is certainly a large speculative element to these figures, and the calculation of intangible costs is especially uncertain. In raising the cost of crime as a comparison benchmark for the NCVS, we do not suggest that the costs of crime and the costs of victimization measurement should be directly linked (e.g., that spending on the NCVS should be some set fraction of the cost of crime)
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Tangible costs involved monetary payments, such as medical costs, stolen or damaged property or wage losses. Intangible costs are nonmonetary and include things that are generally not priced in the marketplace, like pain and suffering or quality of life.
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Some studies have tried to capture the intangible costs of crime by studying the relationship between index crime rates and housing prices. These studies see the risk of victimization as capitalized in housing prices (Thaler, 1978)
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3–E.2 Comparison with Other Federal Surveys The National Crime Victimization Survey is conducted largely from the 12 regional offices of the U.S. Census Bureau.
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Moreover, we have restricted comparisons to the costs of collecting victimization survey data because the collection of court and corrections data in England and Wales now resides with the Ministry of Justice and not the Home Office.
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The Home Office spends approximately $12.5 million doing the same for the BCS. The United States has roughly four times the population of England and Wales; so on a per capita basis, the former spends $73.67 per 1,000 population on victimization data while the latter spends $212.62.
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3–F ISSUES RELATED TO THE COEXISTENCE OF THE NCVS AND THE UCR For more than three decades, the nation has had two national indicators of crime: the Uniform Crime Reporting program and the National Crime Victimization Survey. As described in Chapter 2, the two programs overlap in the crimes they cover (and both are used to generate national-level estimates of violent crime)
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As evident in Figure 3-2, annual estimates of the total number of serious violent crimes derived from NCVS data have often been higher than the annual counts in the UCR. There are several reasons why this may occur.
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. SOURCE: National Crime Victimization Survey, Bureau of Justice Statistics and Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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Using UCR and NCVS aggravated assault data for the period 1980–2001, Rosenfeld found that the correlation between the UCR and NCVS estimates of gun assaults was 0.74, while the correlation for nongun assaults was 0.16 (not significantly different from 0)
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The limited amount of research that has addressed the comparability of UCR and NCVS trends in local areas has used data from special tabulations of NCVS data. One such special subset allows researchers to produce victimization estimates for the 40 largest metropolitan core-county areas in the country (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2007b)
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Against this backdrop, "victim surveys brought the ‘patina of science' " and an air of accuracy and impartiality to crime statistics; "there was greater trust that the resulting [NCVS] crime estimates were not purposely manipulated" because "the Census Bureau and survey research agencies were not interested parties with respect to the crime problem" (Cantor and Lynch, 2000:88–89)
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From page 76... ...
• Independent measure as "calibration" device: It is useful to have two related-but-not-identical measures in simultaneous operation simply because they may not always agree. The United States has two inde pendent measures of jobs and employment (in the Current Employ ment Statistics and the Current Population Survey)
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that National Crime Survey estimates captured only about one-third of gun assaults resulting in gunshot injury that were apparent in emergency room data. Such underestimates might arise from disproportionate gunshot prevalence among those not part of the household population or not listed as household members (and thus not sampled)
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Accordingly, direct reports from BJS on NCVS trends are frequently sought for information and for assessment of new policy, and NCVS data play an important role in national appraisals of child welfare (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2007) and public health (U.S.
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From page 79... ...
To take that option violates the legislative responsibilities of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Furthermore, the panel thinks that BJS is the appropriate locus of responsibility for victimization measurement.
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