This final report examines the differences in the measurement of criminal victimization between the current and redesigned National Crime Victimization Survey Instrument (NCVS) questionnaires; it focuses on the performance of the victimization screeners and parts of the crime incident report (CIR) used in assigning type-of-crime recodes, including: rape and sexual assault, attack and threatened attack, burglary and trespassing, motor vehicle theft, other theft and personal theft, vandalism, presence, location, workplace violence, and school crime.
This report describes testing efforts to develop and assess a new National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) instrument. This testing was a part of the NCVS Instrument Redesign and Testing Project, a major multiyear effort to revamp the existing core survey instrument, which was last updated in 1992. The effort had three main goals: modernize the organization and content of the NCVS instrument, increase the quality of information collected and efficiency of the instrument flow, and improve the measurement and classification of crime. This report details findings from a large-scale national field test to compare differences in the measurement of criminal victimization between two versions of the core NCVS instrument. It examines the performance of the Victimization Screener and Crime Incident Report used in determining the type of crime.