NCJ Number
156422
Journal
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency Volume: 32 Issue: 3 Dated: (August 1995) Pages: 287-308
Date Published
1995
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This study compares the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) profile of juvenile victimization with comparable patterns of events from two other national data sets (the National Youth Survey and Monitoring the Future) that focus on juveniles and their experiences.
Abstract
Surveys of crime victims provide a useful supplement to official police measures of serious crime, providing a more accurate profile of street crime levels and a more dynamic view of crime as interactions between offenders and victims. Begun in 1973, the NCVS provides a systematic, reliable national assessment of crime and is the preferred source of data for many analytical purposes; however, the NCVS is not equally reliable for all types of victims and offenses. This is shown in a comparison of the NCVS profile of juvenile victimization with such victimizations shown in the National Youth Survey and Monitoring the Future. The large discrepancies in estimated levels of the criminal victimization of adolescents between the NCVS and alternative national surveys of juvenile experiences cannot be dismissed as technical deviations or measurement/sampling error. Rather, they may be due to more substantial differences in the social dynamics of the interviews that elicit victimization data from adolescent respondents. There is a need for the NCVS to develop interview procedures more appropriate to juvenile victims, who are the most frequently victimized segment of the population. 3 tables, appended victimization questionnaire, and 32 references