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Crime facts
at a glance

State and local crime trends

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Crime and Victims Statistics

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Summary findings About the data collections Also by BJS Staff	Selected statistics Related sites

Pages with additional information, statistics, and publications about:

Criminal victimization

Victim characteristics (female victims, elderly victims, teenage victims...)

Crime characteristics (types of crime, victim/offender relationship,
weapon use, place of occurrence, cost of crime...)

Incident-based statistics

See Data Online for State and local data on crime trends and homicide trends and victim characteristics

Summary findings

According to the BJS National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)--

Since 1994, violent crime rates have declined, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2005.

Trends in violent victimizations, 1973 to 2006.
Property crime rates continue to decline.

Trends in property crime victimizations, 1973 to 2006.

The NCVS is one of the Nation's largest ongoing household surveys. Survey data tell us how many rapes, sexual assaults, robberies, assaults, thefts, household burglaries, and motor vehicle thefts U.S. residents age 12 or older and their households experience each year.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports,--

The violent crime rate increased 1.0% from 2005 to 2006. From 1997 to 2006 the rate fell 22.5%.
The property crime rate decreased 2.8% from 2005 to 2006. From 1997 to 2006, the rate fell 22.7%.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports Program (UCR) collects information from local law enforcement agencies about crimes reported to police. The UCR crime index includes seven offenses; homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft.

For more information about the purposes and advantages of the UCR and the NCVS, see The Nation's Two Crime Measures.

See also Data Online and Homicide Trends in the United States for additional UCR data.

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BJS criminal victimization data collections

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is the Nation's primary source of information on criminal victimization. Each year, data are obtained from a nationally representative sample of 76,000 households comprising nearly 135,300 persons on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States. The survey enables BJS to estimate the likelihood of victimization by rape, sexual assault, robbery, assault, theft, household burglary, and motor vehicle theft for the population as a whole as well as for segments of the population such as women, the elderly, members of various racial groups, city dwellers, or other groups. The NCVS provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders.
Ongoing from 1973; Redesign 1992.

Redesign of the National Crime Victimization Survey

NCVS survey instruments (in Acrobat format):: National Crime Victimization Survey, Basic Screen Questionnaire 2004 version, (187K); 2001 version; NCVS Crime Incident Report, 2004 version, (169K); 2001 version; Police-Public Contact Survey: A Supplement to the NCVS, 2005 version (136K); 2002 version; 1999 version
NCVS survey instruments used to interview Spanish speaking respondents.: National Crime Victimization Survey, 6/01 version, (221K); NCVS Crime Incident Report, 7/01 version, (196K)
NCVS Interviewing Manual for Field Representatives: Acrobat file (2.2M) | ASCII text (1.1M); 2008 Identity Theft Supplement (ITS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (169K); Supplemental Victimization Survey (SVS) (163K)

Help for using BJS products

Codebooks and datasets

City-level survey of crime victimization and citizen attitudes. BJS in a joint effort with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) conducted victimization surveys in 12 selected cities. The standard National Crime Victimization Survey instrument was used with questions about citizen perceptions of community policing and neighborhood issues. All sampled household residents age 12 or older were included in the survey. Participating cities were -- Chicago, IL, Kansas City, MO, Knoxville, TN, Los Angeles, CA, Madison, WI, New York, NY, San Diego, CA, Savannah, GA, Spokane, WA, Springfield, MA, Tucson, AZ, Washington, DC.

Emergency Room Statistics on Intentional Violence collects data on intentional injuries, such as domestic violence, rape, and child abuse, from a national sample of hospital emergency rooms. Through the Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, information is obtained on characteristics of the victim and perpetrator, victim-perpetrator relationship, alcohol/drug involvement in the incident, and description of circumstances of injury.
1994.

National Computer Security Survey (NCSS). The goal of NCSS is to produce reliable national and industry-level estimates of the prevalence of computer security incidents (such as denial of service attacks, fraud, or theft of information) against businesses and the resulting losses incurred by businesses. The first national survey of thousands of businesses is being conducted in 2006. It is cosponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The RAND Corporation is the data collection agent.

The NCSS collects data on -

the nature and extent of computer security incidents
monetary costs and other consequences of these incidents
incident details such as types of offenders and reporting to authorities
computer security measures used by companies.

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Also by BJS staff

Langan, Patrick A. and Matthew R. Durose (BJS statisticians) The Remarkable Drop in Crime in New York City, (Paper presented at the International Conference on Crime, Rome, Italy, December 2003)

Lauritsen, Janet L. and Shannan Catalano; "National Crime Victimization Surveys" Encyclopedia of Social Measurement, Vol. 2, 2005

Rand, Michael, R. and Callie Marie Rennison; "True Crime Stories? Accounting for Differences in our National Crime Indicators" Chance, Vol. 15 No. 1, 2002
Acrobat file (261K) | ASCII file (23K)

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