Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault (2014) / Chapter Skim
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9 Synopsis of Potential Errors in the National Crime Victimization Survey
9 Synopsis of Potential Errors in the National Crime Victimization Survey
Pages 153-160
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From page 153... ...
, which provides a rich source of information on criminal victimizations, the victims, and the specifics of their criminal victimizations. In a 2008 report, the National Research Council found that the NCVS provided the only annual source of national data on criminal victimization with detail at the incident level.
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From page 154... ...
The handling of these outlier reports has created additional concern about year-to-year fluctuation in the estimates of rape and sexual assault. The overall response rates on the NCVS have remained fairly high, and there is little item nonresponse coded for specific rape and sexual assault screener questions.
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From page 155... ...
Inefficiency of the Sample Design The NCVS is a general criminal victimization survey that targets the noninstitutionalized population of the United States with questions about different types of criminal victimizations, including crimes against property and people. Of the 19 million criminal victimizations identified through the NCVS in 2011, 64 percent were property crimes, which are dominated by theft; 29 percent were violent crimes (against people)
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From page 156... ...
BJS and the Census Bureau could address this issue by implementing a very large increase to the existing sample size of the NCVS or by modifying the NCVS sample design to focus more efficiently on subpopulations at greater risk for sexual victimization. (See Chapter 10 for a discussion of such a focused design.)
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From page 157... ...
This switch would be a major change for the survey, and it would likely have both beneficial and detrimental effects on collecting information about other types of criminal victimizations. The panel concludes that such a change of data collection mode is important to make, but that this change alone would still not provide the level of privacy that is needed for reporting sexual victimizations.
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From page 158... ...
Without an accompanying increase in sample size, this change would negatively affect the precision for estimates of all types of victimizations. Ambiguous Terms in the Questionnaire The current NCVS screening questionnaire uses a series of cues to aid respondents in remembering past victimizations.
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From page 159... ...
Although BJS has commissioned a number of research studies over the past 10 years and many of the final reports of those studies are on the BJS website, they are inadequately organized to allow data users easy access. An interested data user has to know that a particular research study was conducted and then do a "hit or miss" search to see whether a research report on that topic was posted.
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From page 160... ...
No ongoing survey captures this information, with child protective services providing the major source of information on these victimizations. Unfortunately, this situation is similar to when the Uniform Crime Reports was the single source reporting on the sexual victimization of adults, with resulting concerns about underreporting to authorities.
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