NCJ Number
86410
Journal
Research Bulletin Issue: 14 Dated: (1982) Pages: 24-27
Date Published
1982
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article summarizes the background of the 1982 British Crime Survey (victimization survey), its coverage, and some aspects of its organization and design.
Abstract
The British Crime Survey (BCS) was essentially a victimization survey that covered levels of victimization for a wide range of specific crimes, factors affecting the risk of victimization, fear of crime, police contact, and self-reported offending. A victim form was completed for each victimization in the main recall period (last 13-14 months); the form deals with the main characteristics of the incident, consequences to the victim, and contact with the police. The demographic information obtained from respondents included age, sex, marital status, ethnic group, educational level, occupation, occupation of head of household, income, tenure of dwelling, and type of dwelling. In inquiring about police contact, respondents were asked about the types of use they had made of the police over the last year, the circumstances of such contact, and their assessment of it. A few questions about general attitudes to the police were also included. Information on self-reported offending was elicited by a system of card sorting. Respondents were asked to shuffle cards, each carrying the description of an offense, into two piles: one comprising offenses which they had never done and the other comprising offenses they had committed at least once. They were then asked how many times in the last year they had committed offenses in the latter pile. One person aged 16 or over was interviewed in each household. An issued sample of some 20,000 addresses yielded almost 11,000 interviews in England and Wales and 5,000 in Scotland, with a response rate of 80.5 percent of eligible addresses. The sample was designed to be nationally representative; however, inner city areas were oversampled in England, partly to maximize the number of victims identified and partly to provide more precise information on inner city areas. Six references are listed.