Mainstreaming Methodology for Estimating Costs of Crime
From an estimation of the cost of crime perspective the value of using victimization data is that victimisation surveys to generate data for cost of crime estimation.
Surveys may be conducted at various levels and in different ways. Crime is a significant political issue in many countries. Since surveys are normally funded by taxpayers, their geographical coverage will often be driven by political geography and by the structure of responsibilities within the Criminal Justice System. Where responsibilities are decentralised to local communities or even police force areas a result can be many small and unrepresentative local surveys which cannot be used for purposes of estimating national costs of crime, unless the questions and methodology are well co-ordinated.
Country Specific Surveys
National crime victim surveys are conducted regularly in some countries. Where such surveys are conducted (for example in the UK where separate surveys are conducted for Scotland, Northern Ireland and England & Wales) the data can be of great value for crime cost estimation purposes. But many EU member states do not conduct regular large-scale national surveys of this kind. Some of these countries do contribute to a wider internationally-sponsored effort but, as we show, these surveys are of very limited value for estimating key cost of crime components.
The International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS), conducted under the auspices of the UNICRI organisation, are available for a wide range of countries. The surveys are conducted occasionally rather than annually and the sample size (usually around 2,000 households) is on the low side. Despite these limitations they do ensure a minimum amount of information is being produced for the countries covered, and this does support international comparisons of various kinds. The ICVS covers around 37k respondents spread over 18 countries, with an average of 2,000 respondents per country: see Table 1.1 below. The UK data are split into three, one set each for England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Other European countries/areas covered are: Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Denmark, Catalonia and Poland. A number of non-European countries are included namely: USA, Canada and Australia. MMECC has produced a document on how to use ICVS for the purpose on estimating the cost of crime (pdf).
We have extracted some of the most relevant data from the ICVS per offence type, from 1989 to 2000 for the countries covered in the ICVS. Download data in Excel. Coverage is from 1989 to 1992 for 72 countries.
