The Future of the NCVS: Findings From the Multiyear Effort to Design the New Instrument and Plans for Implementation

• Published date: 01 February 2025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241290357
• Author: Jennifer L. Truman,Rachel E. Morgan
• Date: 01 February 2025

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241290357

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2025, Vol. 41(1) 196 –215

© The Author(s) 2024

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10439862241290357

journals.sagepub.com/home/ccj

Article

The Future of the NCVS:

Findings From the Multiyear

Effort to Design the New

Instrument and Plans for

Implementation

Jennifer L. Truman1 and Rachel E. Morgan1

Abstract

During the past 50 years, various changes and improvements to the National

Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) have occurred. During this time, the NCVS

has provided important national data on personal and household victimization and

has remained a key resource for understanding victims’ experiences. As the survey

continues to evolve over time to address emerging data needs, this article provides

details on the most recent multiyear effort to redesign the NCVS instrument. This

effort was focused on three main goals: modernize the organization and content of

the NCVS instrument, increase the quality of information collected and efficiency of

the instrument flow, and improve the measurement and classification of crime. As we

look forward to the next 50 years of NCVS data collection, the new NCVS instrument

will continue to be a rich data source for understanding criminal victimization and the

resulting consequences.

Keywords

victimization, crime, NCVS, redesign

Introduction

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is one of the nation’s primary mea-

sures of criminal victimization. The survey has been ongoing annually for more than

50 years, providing national data since 1973 on the level and change of nonfatal

1Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC,

USA

Corresponding Author:

Jennifer L. Truman, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice,

Washington, DC 20531, USA.

Email: jennifer.truman@usdoj.gov

1290357CCJXXX10.1177/10439862241290357Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeTruman and Morgan

research-article2024

Truman and Morgan 197

personal crimes and household property crimes both reported and not reported to

police. The survey is sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the principal

statistical agency within the U.S. Department of Justice, and data collection is carried

out annually by the U.S. Census Bureau. Data are collected from a nationally represen-

tative sample of U.S. households and the survey is administered to all persons aged 12

years or older within those households. The NCVS is a self-report survey and respon-

dents provide information about themselves and their victimization experiences. The

NCVS is also a critical source of national data on numerous policy-relevant subjects,

including reporting victimization to police, intimate partner violence, hate crime,

workplace violence, firearm violence, and crimes committed against vulnerable popu-

lations, such as persons with disabilities. The administration of routine survey supple-

ments on emerging topics, such as school crime, stalking, and identity theft, are also

part of the NCVS data collection. The survey has continued to evolve over time to

innovate and address emerging data needs, including improving the measurement of

criminal victimization and the resulting consequences. The NCVS also provides an

important understanding of unreported crime that can help inform allocation of the

criminal justice system and victim service resources, as well provide a better under-

standing of victim decision-making and responses to crime.

Over the five decades of the NCVS, various changes and improvements to the sur-

vey have occurred (BJS, 2023). These include innovations in data collection methods

such as the introduction of telephone interviewing in 1980 and moving to computer-

assisted telephone and personal interviewing in 2006. New topics have been intro-

duced to the survey over time, including additional crime types, weapon type, and hate

crime, as well as targeted supplements on emerging topics such as stalking and fraud.

The survey was first redesigned in 1992 and incorporated revisions, including adding

screener cues to help respondents recall incidents; improving screening questions to

sharpen concepts of criminal victimization; improving measures of rape, sexual

assault, and domestic violence; adding questions on nature and consequences of vic-

timizations; and expanding information about victim contacts with the criminal justice

system and police activity during the incident (Biderman et al., 1986; BJS, 1989;

Kindermann et al., 1997; Perkins et al., 1996; Taylor, 1989). Beginning in the late

2000s, BJS began a multistage redesign effort and commenced various research proj-

ects to respond to recommendations from the Committee on National Statistics

(CNSTAT) of the National Research Council (2008, 2009), which were aimed at

increasing the relevance and quality of NCVS data. These efforts included testing of

various approaches to improve the measurement of rape and sexual assault; the devel-

opment of a subnational program with a combination of model-based estimates and

direct estimates through a boost of the NCVS sample in the 22 most populous states;

and a major overhaul of the NCVS survey instrument. This latest instrument redesign

is ongoing and involves modernizing the survey, improving measures of victimization

and incident characteristics, and developing indicators of safety and perceptions of

police that go beyond experiences with victimization.

This article provides details on the multiyear effort to redesign the NCVS instru-

ment. First, we review the background on the NCVS instrument redesign efforts. This