Neighborhood Immigrant Concentration, Interview Language, and Survey Nonresponse in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

• Published date: 01 February 2025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241290351
• Author: Eric P. Baumer,Min Xie
• Date: 01 February 2025

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241290351

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2025, Vol. 41(1) 71 –95

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862241290351

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Article

Neighborhood Immigrant

Concentration, Interview

Language, and Survey

Nonresponse in the National

Crime Victimization Survey

(NCVS)

Eric P. Baumer1 and Min Xie2

Abstract

Using restricted data from 2011 to 2014, this study examines whether neighborhood

immigrant concentration and survey interview language are associated with

participation in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The findings

show that survey participation in the NCVS during the study period did not differ

appreciably among households and persons sampled from neighborhoods with larger

shares of immigrants. This suggests that the NCVS can contribute meaningfully to

knowledge about the relationship between neighborhood immigrant concentration

and levels of crime, providing an important complement to studies based on crime

data collected by law enforcement agencies. Interview language had a minimal impact

on nonresponse among Hispanic respondents in the NCVS, but the study revealed

much higher rates of nonresponse across waves among Asian household respondents

who completed the NCVS in a non-English language, especially among those from

neighborhoods with relatively low immigrant concentration. This suggests that

greater translation support for Asian respondents could increase NCVS response

rates. Replicating and extending our research with more recent NCVS data, and

incorporating the new item on citizenship status, would be valuable given the

continued growth in the immigrant population, increased share of immigrants who

routinely speak a language other than English at home, and social and political changes

that have corresponded with observed reductions in nonresponse in government-

1The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA

2University of Maryland, College Park, USA

Corresponding Author:

Eric P. Baumer, Department of Sociology and Criminology, The Pennsylvania State University, University

Park, PA 16802, USA.

Email: epbaumer@psu.edu

1290351CCJXXX10.1177/10439862241290351Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeBaumer and Xie

research-article2024

72 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 41(1)

administered surveys. We encourage the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to facilitate

such research by routinely making the restricted NCVS data available for researchers

to use within the nation’s Federal Statistical Research Data Centers and by adding

interview language as a permanent fixture of the data.

Keywords

NCVS, survey response, immigration, crime, language

Introduction

The study of immigration and crime has emerged as a significant area of inquiry over

the past few decades, with much of the research devoted to assessing the impact of

neighborhood immigrant concentration on levels of crime. The collective conclusion

that has emerged from that research is that immigrant neighborhoods exhibit crime

rates that are, on average, slightly lower than rates observed in other neighborhoods

(Ousey & Kubrin, 2018). The underlying research on which that conclusion is based

is sophisticated in several respects, but almost all of it has relied on data from the

Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, which reflects crimes reported to and

recorded by local law enforcement agencies. Although the UCR Summary System and

its replacement—the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)—are valu-

able components of the nation’s crime data infrastructure, research suggests that resi-

dents of immigrant communities may be reluctant to report crimes to police (Gutierrez

& Kirk, 2017; Xie & Baumer, 2019). That possibility highlights how the exclusive use

of data collected by the police may yield an incomplete portrait of the relationship

between neighborhood immigrant concentration and crime. Alternative data collection

systems, such as the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), may offer an

important complementary data source. Yet, fundamental questions also arise about the

utility of the NCVS for measuring crime experienced in immigrant communities.

Perhaps most fundamentally, the NCVS could yield misleading results if neighbor-

hood immigrant concentration strongly influences survey participation.

The pertinent theoretical and empirical literature supports the possibility that resi-

dents of immigrant neighborhoods may be more, or less, likely to participate in gov-

ernment-administered surveys, and suggests that the language proficiency of sampled

respondents—and ultimately, the language in which the survey is administered—could

be a key consideration (National Research Council, 2013; Zhang et al., 2009). To the

best of our knowledge, no research has examined these issues explicitly in the NCVS.

This paper breaks new ground by examining the influence of neighborhood immi-

grant concentration and interview language on participation in the NCVS. The study

adds to existing knowledge about survey response patterns in the NCVS by highlight-

ing previously unaddressed questions about the potential importance of neighborhood

immigrant concentration and interview language. This is an important contribution

because, as elaborated below, the theoretical literature suggests that neighborhood

conditions, including levels of immigrant concentration, may influence survey