copyright 2010, the world bank group. all rights reserved. victim surveys part 1 crime, justice...

Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.

Victim Surveys

Part 1

Crime, Justice & Security Statistics

Produced in Collaboration between World Bank Institute and the Development Data Group (DECDG)


Victim Surveys as an alternative source of data

• Asking people their experience of crime can give a fuller picture than police statistics

• This is usually done by conducting a victim survey among a sample of households

• Such a survey needs careful planning to be cost-effective• It will need to be carried out by an organisation that includes well

qualified statisticians• This Module looks at the main considerations when planning a

victim survey

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Who should carry out a victim survey?

• The most likely agency is the Central Statistics Office, which has the capacity and experience to carry out a survey (e.g. Mauritius)

• In some countries, however, special organisations have been set up with the similar capacity and experience inside:

• One of the justice ministries (e.g. UK)• local government: e.g. a city authority (e.g. Tanzania)• a university or research institute (e.g. South Africa)

• Examples of different types of victim survey, carried out in a variety of countries will be shown in the slides at the end of this Module.

• The UN has issued guidelines for conducting victim surveys

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Main problems of conducting a sample survey

1. How much will the survey cost?

2. What part of the country should be sampled?

3. How large a sample should be chosen?

4. How should this sample be chosen?

5. What should be included in the questionnaire?

6. What classifications should be used?

7. How can the results be used together with the data held by the police?

4


How much will the survey cost?

• Costs vary depending on size and complexity• If a few questions are added to a survey of households already

being conducted (Mauritius 2004, 2007), marginal costs will be low, mainly staff time.

• If a large stand alone survey is required, especially a full national survey with an extensive questionnaire, the cost can be quite high: e.g. the British Crime Survey costs around US$2m each year.

• If the survey is included in a wider program to improve justice services, this too can be expensive: e.g. the program associated with the victim survey in Dar Es Salaam in 2004 cost around US$0.5m.

• However, small scale stand alone victim surveys of some 2,000 households, based on an internationally designed questionnaire, can cost around US$100,000.

5


What part of the country should be sampled?

• The ideal solution is to sample throughout the country, perhaps adding a few questions to an existing survey.

This will give results that will be true for the country as a whole but, because of sampling error, it may still not be possible to show how victimization varies across the country (e.g. see Mauritius survey).

• An alternative is to sample households within a capital or another large city.

This will give a more focussed result, be easier to conduct, and be more likely to relate to policing policies to reduce crime. The main disadvantage is that it will ignore the rest of the country.

6


How large a sample to choose?

• As sample size is related to cost, the size of the sample will depend on cost to a large extent.

• However, samples of fewer than 1,000 are not to be recommended, as results will not be accurate.

• The size of larger samples will depend on what can be afforded. The larger the sample the more accurate the results

• The British Crime Survey samples 47,000 households nationally but gives very detailed results.

• If sample sizes of say 1,000-5,000 can be afforded, then there is good reason for concentrating the samples in a small number of large cities to make the work more focussed

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How should the sample be chosen?

• If a victim survey is included within an already organized survey, there are no problems with the sampling method

• If the survey is stand alone, the method will depend on what registers exist: e.g. you could need to sample from the following depending on the local circumstances:National registration system - Electoral register - Local tax register

• The sample itself should be chosen at random: either one Phase or two

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What should be included in the questionnaire?

Again this will depend to a large extent on cost and best results will beobtained from a short survey, lasting no more than 15-30 minutes.

As well as victimization other topics could be:

1. Demographic characteristics 2. Circumstances of the victimisation 3. Victim’s experience of law enforcement4. Victim’s opinions about law enforcement5. Victim’s fears of crime6. Crime prevention measures taken by the victim

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Topics for basic questionnaire

• Basic Demographics • (age, sex, size and income of household, place)

• Victimization of two or three offences only• experience of burglary, vehicle theft, assault in the last 12

months• Circumstances of crime

• amount stolen, damage caused (personal, vandalism)• Was the crime reported to the police?

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Topics for fuller questionnaire

As above plus:

1. Victimization of a wider range of offences (see next slide)2. If crime not reported why not?3. Victim’s fear of crime in the neighborhood4. Victim’s confidence in the police: in judges5. Have you interacted with law enforcement in last 12 months6. Does your house have door/window locks?7. Does your car have a garage?

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What classifications should be used?

• Demographic data collected in victim surveys will have the same classifications as CSO collect for other statistics.

• Offence classifications used in victim surveys should be as close to Police data as possible, with the following differences:• Do not ask about murder, sexual crime, illegal drug taking as

response may not be accurate• Avoid using legal jargon as this could be misunderstood.

• Answers to other questions should be pre-coded to make analysis more straightforward

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Offence classification used in UK

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Piloting the survey

• All questionnaires need to be piloted• This means trying out the questionnaire in a small number of

households, in ‘real’ conditions, to see that it works well in practice.• Difficulties for both the interviewer and the respondent should be

recorded• The questionnaire should then be revised in the light of the pilot’s

findings.• Sometimes a second pilot will be needed

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Conduct of the survey

• The following practical aspects need to be fully planned for:– Instructions to the interviewers should be drafted which are clear and

unambiguous– The conduct of the survey is either sub contracted to a competent

private agency or a field force of interviewers recruited– In either case the field force must be trained sufficiently to be able to

carry out the survey competently.

• As it is important that a particular number of household is visited successfully, over sampling is necessary based upon the likely response rate: whereas 60-70% response rate is usually looked for, the local CSO may advise that response rate is likely to be lower.

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Analysis of the survey

• Experience has shown that questionnaires with open-ended questions are much less easy to analyse that closed questions that can be coded in advance.

• Although special survey analysis packages can be used, the most cost-effective way to produce the results is to:• produce simple distributions for each variable• create an EXCEL spreadsheet with households as rows and

coded answers to questions as columns• This will enable an analyst trained and experienced in EXCEL

analysis to produce two- and three way tables swiftly using the standard EXCEL pivot table features.

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copyright 2010, the world bank group. all rights reserved. victim surveys part 1 crime, justice...

Documents

sample survey

survey of households

mauritius survey

national survey

existing survey

world bank group

victim surveys

british crime survey