Theory Development and Crime Prevention Insights From the NCVS

• Published date: 01 February 2025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241290359
• Author: Andromachi Tseloni
• Date: 01 February 2025
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241290359

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2025, Vol. 41(1) 96 –114

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862241290359

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Article

Theory Development and

Crime Prevention Insights

From the NCVS

Andromachi Tseloni1

Abstract

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) has furnished U.S. crime statistics

and high quality data for theory development and policy insights for over 50 years.

This article highlights few of these achievements drawing on the development of

criminological thinking with regard to measurement, and explanation of victimization

and its concentration on a small minority of the population. It overviews lifestyle

and the more encompassing environmental criminology theory for victimization, and

explanations of multiple victimization, and the international crime drop that relied on

NCVS data. Selected crime prevention insight and few recommendations for future

research conclude the article.

Keywords

crime prevention, multiple victimization explanations and statistical models, National

Crime Victimization Survey, victimization measurements, victimization theories

Background

Historically, criminology was developed to study offending: Why and arguably under

which conditions few people commit crimes—actions, which perceived to threaten the

smooth functioning of organized societies, are prohibited and punishable by estab-

lished laws (Sidebottom & Wortley, 2016, p. 156). This is inherently divisive and

offers a partial picture. It juxtaposes law-abiding victims of crime against offenders,

who, however, are often victims (Jennings et al., 2010), and assumes that criminal law

is generated via democratic processes, which equally represent and serve all society

1Nottingham Trent University, UK

Corresponding Author:

Andromachi Tseloni, Professor of Quantitative Criminology, Department of Criminology and Criminal

Justice, Nottingham Trent University, 50 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham NG1 4FQ, UK.

Email: andromachi.tseloni@ntu.ac.uk

1290359CCJXXX10.1177/10439862241290359Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeTseloni

research-article2024

Tseloni 97

members and communities, although criminal justice may be biased against marginal-

ized communities (Duxbury, 2021a, 2021b).

The cornerstone for crime prevention is measurement—identifying its extent, tem-

poral and spatial variations, and other patterns—via systematically collected data.

Such data (un)availability necessitated to some extent the field’s historic focus on

offending. Records collected for supporting police departments’ and other criminal

justice system (CJS) agencies’ operations constituted the sole source for measuring the

extent, and patterns of crime at national level until the 1970s (Addington & Rennison,

2014).

Police-recorded crime statistics have been criticized due to underreporting (by mar-

ginalized, lacking trust to, and/or fearful of the police communities) and substantial

variations in recording procedures across police departments (Biderman & Lynch,

1991; Kershaw, 2008; Warner, 1931; Xie et al., 2024). In response to these well-docu-

mented and widely acknowledged weaknesses in recorded crime data, crime victim-

ization surveys were developed (Aebi & Linde, 2014), to generate robust estimates of

crime rates and trends, especially for high volume crimes, and rich supplementary

information about: victims’ crime experiences, police reporting, and satisfaction; the

general population’s perceptions and attitudes about crime, disorder, the police, and

the CJS; and detailed demographic, socioeconomic, and other factual information

about survey respondents, their household, and neighborhood. This information has

provided the foundations for theory development, especially on victimization; fear of

crime; and legitimacy of and trust in the police and the CJS. However, the focus on

offending permeated into the first attempts to study victimization, most notably the

lifestyle and victim proneness theories.

The National Crime Survey (NCS) is the oldest NCS in the world since 1972.

Originally conceived as a means to acquire national level, and most importantly inde-

pendent of police records, estimates of crime rates in the United States, the NCS and

the redesigned National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)1 has furnished crimino-

logical, and, in particular, victimization theory development from the outset.

The present article overviews selected NCVS—based on efforts in developing

new and/or informing already existing theories, touching upon the following: life-

style victimization theory which merged with social disorganization theory informs

environmental criminology; victim proneness; repeat victimization; and crime drop

explanations. These NCVS-informed theoretical insights are presented within vic-

timization measurement that researchers sought to explain, and within this by

applied methodology. Organizing the article’s structure around measurement and

methodology arguably highlights how criminological thinking to explain victimiza-

tion evolved, and may support (a) NCVS questionnaire design analysts and (b)

researchers in developing additional tools and new theoretical and crime prevention

insights in future.2 After having overviewed patterns of criminal victimization, the

article ends with a discussion of some already suggested crime prevention insights

from NCVS studies, and tentative recommendations for future NCVS-based

research.