Online Program

Developing a Low-Cost Survey of Local-Level Criminal Victimization and Attitudes About Public Safety (304889)

*Grace Kena, U.S. Department of Justice 
Lynn Langton, U.S. Department of Justice 
Pamela Giambo, Westat 
J. Michael Brick, Westat 
W. Sherman Edwards, Westat 
Pamela Broene, Westat 
Sharon Lohr, Arizona State University 

Keywords: crime, victimization, survey, local, safety, community, probability sample

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), a rotating panel survey sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), is the nation’s primary source of information on victimizations reported and not reported to the police. In response to demand for local-area estimates of victimization, BJS explored the feasibility of a lower-cost mail survey that local jurisdictions could field to produce reliable information on victimization and community attitudes about safety and local police. The American Crime Victimization Survey (ACVS), developed in partnership with Westat, was tested in 2015 and 2016 in the 40 largest U.S. metropolitan areas with a probability sample of over 200,000 addresses in each year. This presentation will describe the ACVS field test methodology, including data quality metrics. It will also assess cross-sectional and change estimates of community attitudes and victimization prevalence from field test data. Finally, it will describe the results of several methodological experiments, such as different instrument structures and question ordering, focusing on lessons learned and best practices for local jurisdictions implementing the survey.