National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
Introduction
The National Crime Victimization Survey is an agency in the United States supported by the Department of Justice to measure the amount and kinds of felonies people & units encounter in six month period after the interview. NCVS handles a workload of approximately 700 cases and respondents are surveyed two times a year for three years.
The major purpose of NCVS is to collect detailed information about victims of certain types of crimes. Some of the crimes surveyed include motor vehicle theft, burglary, theft, robbery, identity card thefts, assault rape, pocket pickers and school crimes to children between ages 12 and 18 years. The census bureau collects this information on behalf of the bureau of justice statistics by means of a complement during ordinary data gathering.
Review literature
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVC) cycle, formerly known as the National Crime Survey (NCS), has been collecting this information on individuals and home persecution from the year 1973. The agency has been doing continues survey on a samples that are collected nationally from places where respondents live. The NCVC provides the largest national forum for fatalities to describe the consequence of crime and features of cruel offenders. It is the main source of data on kind and features of unlawful victimization, the number and kinds of felonies reported to authorities that enforce the law. Twice every year, information is received from a sample of over 49000 families composed of 100000 people about the frequency of the crime, features and results of criminal persecution in the US. (Tjaden, 2000)
Objectives of National Crime Victimization Survey
i) To process information in details on the sufferers and impact of felony.
ii) Create estimation on the amount and kinds of crimes that are never accounted to the law enforcers.
iii) Set similar standards for measuring selected felonies.
iv) To allow comparisons over instances and kinds of areas
According to the survey, crimes are categorized as property or personal. Property crimes are those which interfere with assets like theft, motor vehicle theft, cover burglary, vandalism and pocket picking or purse snatching. Personal crimes include sexual attack and rape, burglary, provoked and simple attack.
This information is very important for computing frequency of crime, which is used for predicting varieties in offense rates every single year. National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) provides information with specific details including the area the felony took place, relationship that exists between criminal and victim, type of crime, month, protective mechanisms put up by the injured party, whether law enforcing agencies got the report and if not, the reason why it was not reported, how offenders use drugs, armaments and alcohol, fundamental demographic information and so forth.
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) comprises of hierarchical documents and incident documents. Hierarchical documents contain all events of crime reported annually while occasional level documents are created on hierarchical documents. The online version is also very much detailed and users can choose a year they are interested in and read the crime reports of that particular period. ( Lynch, 2007).
Methodology
The paper is founded on the basis of secondary data from the books, journals from the department of justice of the United States and internet sources. These sources were of great importance because they contained almost all the information the researchers used. The agency, as the researcher found has a lot of secondary data (mentioned above), and this is very commendable.
The researcher also referred to various charts and tables form the department of justice in the US which was also very comprehensive.
Conclusion
It is clear that the Survey is a very rich source of information to the US department of justice through the bureau of statics. This information can help law enforcers and correctional agencies not only to understand how crimes are committed but also recommend long term strategies of preventing crime a part from arresting and taking to court law breakers. National Crime Victimization Survey can also recommend practical ways of preventing crime.
References
Lynch, J. (2007). Understanding crime statistics: A review of the divergence of the UCR and NCVS. A Cambridge studies in criminology. Cambridge University Press.
Tjaden, P. (2000) . Full Report on the Incidences, Prevalence, and Consequences of Intimate Partner domestic Violence Against Women: Findings from(NCVS) . National Institute of Justice. NCJ
