NCVS OMB Supporting Statement Part A_Final

Supporting Statement

A. Justification

1. Necessity of the Information Collection

The current revisions request updates the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), of the U.S. Department of Justice, prior request for an extension of a currently approved collection, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (OMB No. 1121-0111). The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) current approval of the NCVS expired August 30, 2018. This submission is for an extension of the current approval through August 2021 and a substantive revision to the NCVS to only administer questions on sexual orientation and gender identity of victims age 16 or older.

Title 34, United States Code, Section 10132 of the Justice Systems Improvement Act of 1979, authorizes BJS to collect statistics on victimization (see attachments). Since 1972, the NCVS has been providing national data on personal and household victimization, both reported and not reported to police. The data collection allows the BJS to fulfill its mission of collecting, analyzing, publishing, and disseminating information on victims of crime. Together with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) statistics on crimes reported to law enforcement agencies, the NCVS provides an understanding of the nature of and changes in the nation’s crime problems.

The NCVS is currently the only source of annual national data on a number of policy relevant subjects related to criminal victimization, including intimate partner violence, hate crime, workplace violence, injury from victimization, guns and crime, the cost of crime, reporting to police, and crime against vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, juveniles, and persons with disabilities. The NCVS is also a vehicle for the implementation of routine survey supplements that provide detailed information on timely and relevant topics such as identity theft, school crime, and contacts between the police and the public.

The BJS is specifically requesting clearance for the core NCVS from August 2018 through August 2021. The core NCVS includes the administration of the NCVS-1 (screener) and NVCS-2 (crime incident report) instruments to a nationally representative sample of persons age 12 or older living in households in the United States, including samples of persons representative of the 22 most populous states in the U.S. The core NCVS survey instrument covers nine general areas: 1) incidence of rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, personal larceny, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and other theft; 2) characteristics of these victimizations, including location, time, presence of a weapon, injury, and property/monetary loss; 3) characteristics of victims, including sex, age, race, Hispanic origin, disability, and occupation; 4) relationship between victim and offender and offender characteristics, including sex, age, race and Hispanic origin; 5) emotional impact of victimization; 6) victim self-defense and bystander intervention; 7) offender characteristics; 8) reporting to police and police response; and 9) bias- or hate-motivated victimizations. NCVS core work also includes the analysis and dissemination of data products and reports stemming from the core collection, as well as technical and methodological analyses and reports based on the sampling for, administration of, and analysis of data from the NCVS-1 and NCVS-2 instruments.¹

2. Needs and Uses

Since 1972, the NCVS and its predecessor, the National Crime Survey (NCS), have provided national data on the level and change of personal and property crimes both reported and not reported to police. It is one of the two main sources of data on crime in the United States and the only source that provides detailed information on the nature and consequences of crime. By capturing crimes not reported to police, as well as those known to law enforcement, the NCVS serves as the primary, independent source of information on crime in the U.S. Understanding unreported crime also helps to inform the appropriate allocation of criminal justice system and victim service resources and provides a better understanding of victim decision-making, responses to crime, and the resulting consequences.

Beginning in the late 2000s, BJS initiated a substantial multi-stage redesign effort to contain survey costs while enabling the NCVS to meet stakeholder needs for reliable and timely statistics on criminal victimization that are independent of police agency reports, as well as to generate subnational estimates of criminal victimization. Since the prior OMB approval period, BJS has undertaken a number of research projects to respond to recommendations from the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) of the National Research Council on increasing the relevance and quality of NCVS data.² These on-going projects have been conducted under separate clearance packages, and include efforts to conduct a low cost self-administered companion survey to collect local estimates of victimization (OMB No 1121-0351); testing of various approaches to improve the measurement of rape and sexual assault (OMB No. 1121-0343); the development of a subnational program with a combination of model-based estimates and direct estimates through a boost of NCVS sample in the 22 most populous states; and a major overhaul of the NCVS survey instrument to modernize it, increase its flexibility for measuring emerging crime types and to capture indicators of safety and security and perceptions of police that go beyond experiences with victimization.

In order for BJS to fulfill its mission of generating and disseminating data on victims of crime and to maintain the NCVS as the primary source of data on victimization and unreported crime, efforts are continuously underway to improve the utility of the data and the efficiency and effectiveness of the survey methodology, including: 1) Continued development of the NCVS subnational program; 2) Improved responsiveness to existing data needs through the administration of rotating supplements; 3) Improved outreach with stakeholders and the timely release of relevant topical reports; and 4) Modernization of the survey to increase the utility of the survey, capture data on new and emerging crimes, and incorporate methodological enhancements.

Subnational estimates

Though the NCVS was originally designed to provide national level estimates of criminal victimization, BJS has recognized an increasing need for victimization data at the state and local levels. Subnational estimates are of value to both federal and nonfederal data users and stakeholders. Federal stakeholders that currently allocate funding or resources for crime victims and crime prevention based on official police crime estimates will be able to use the victimization estimates to understand how the allocation of funding would change when unreported crime is taken into account. Policy makers will be able to use these estimates to examine local variations in crime both reported and unreported to police and make comparisons among states, and law enforcement officials could use the findings to begin to understand differences in rates of crime and reporting to police across jurisdictions. The data will also be used in conjunction with police statistics to better understand the correlation between the NCVS and police reports of crime.

Earlier research conducted under the NCVS-RR generic clearance (OMB No. 1121-0325) demonstrated that the NCVS could be enhanced to produce several types of subnational estimates without substantially increasing the cost of survey administration (http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/westat_lae_5-19-10.pdf). From 2015 to 2017, BJS implemented various approaches to generating subnational estimates with the NCVS, including modeling state-level estimates using existing sample and external sources of data, and boosting the NCVS core sample in large states to obtain direct state-level estimates. BJS is planning to continue this multipronged approach using a combination of direct and model-based estimation to further develop the subnational program in 2018 through 2021.

Model-based estimates

Since 2010, BJS has supported a series of research projects focused on the feasibility of generating small-area, or model-based, estimates of victimization for all 50 states. The intermediate deliverables were the development of a model for generating small-area estimates using existing NCVS sample and auxiliary data from the American Community Survey and the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports and several reports describing the model and assumptions behind it (see https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=911). The final deliverable was a BJS Research and Development report that presented the findings and spreadsheets containing state level data points for select types of crime for all 50 states going back to 1999 (https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5499). Rates of violent and property crime were generated for each state, as were rates of intimate partner violence and violence committed by a stranger. The report presents the approach and rationale for small-area estimation (SAE) and what it can tell us about crime at the state level.

BJS will continue work to conduct critical validation of the models, which can now incorporate the NCVS direct estimates for select subnational areas. BJS will engage in the continued development of the SAE program including further refinements to original SAE model specifications based on the new NCVS sample design, expansion of the scope of SAE estimates to include smaller levels of geography and additional variables of interest to key stakeholders, and production of a viable ongoing process for generating and disseminating these findings.

Direct estimates

Along with model-based subnational estimates, NCVS sample redesign work also demonstrated that direct Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)-level and state-level estimate development is feasible for a lower cost than was originally anticipated (see https://s3.amazonaws.com/sitesusa/wp-content/uploads/sites/242/2014/05/Fay_2012FCSM_I-B.pdf). Beginning in July of 2013, the Census Bureau implemented a pilot sample boost in the 11 most populous states – California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, and New Jersey – to test assumptions about the cost and precision of NCVS state-level estimates.

Based on findings from the pilot boost, BJS redesigned the NCVS core sample in 2016 to enable the production of victimization estimates for the 22 most populous states, in addition to the nation as a whole. The sample redesign will allow BJS to generate relatively precise (10% relative standard errors or less) rates of violent and property victimization for the 22 states and large MSAs, based on three-year rolling averages beginning with the 2016-2018 data, and to produce regular reports with these direct estimates. BJS plans to publish high-level 1-year estimates of victimization for these states in 2018. BJS will also use the data to assess and validate the model-based estimates and facilitate plans for combining indirect and direct subnational estimates in states and cities with limited existing sample. The 22 states account for 79% of the total US population and approximately 80% of violent crime reported in the FBI’s Part 1 Uniform Crime Reports.

In addition to the sample redesign efforts, BJS is supporting work to recalibrate NCVS sample prior to 2016 to produce direct victimization estimates for metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) from 2006 to 2015 to be produced in 2018. This effort also involves the development of a public-use data file for the largest MSAs as of 2015.

Additionally, BJS will continue with on-going technical work to produce regular reports presenting patterns and trends in victimization in generic geographic areas (i.e. cities with a population of 25,000-50,000 in the Northeast). These generic area estimates of victimization will allow data users to identify “like” areas that share similar size and regional characteristics as their own location and to use the smaller generic areas as a baseline for comparison. In 2014 and 2015 BJS conducted research with the restricted-use, area-identified data maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau to ensure that the sample in geographic generic areas is representative of the actual population of these areas. Generic area typologies were then developed using variables available on the public-use files, namely region, size, and urbanicity.

In 2015, BJS published a technical report on the development and coverage of generic areas (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/acrsgincvspuf.pdf). BJS has also begun to publish reports that divide the country based on other characteristics of areas, such as the report, Violent Victimization in New and Emerging Hispanic Areas, 2007-2010 (http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvneha0710.pdf), which grouped counties and metropolitan areas based on the growth of the area’s Hispanic population. Other reports that are in progress include one on victimization and police reporting across different types of U.S. areas and one on patterns of victimization and reporting to police among neighborhoods with different levels of immigrant concentration.

Improved survey responsiveness with the administration of supplements to the NCVS

In order to remain at the forefront of criminal justice issues and inform discussions and policy on new and emerging crime types, BJS also needs to improve the NCVS’s responsiveness. One approach to improving the responsiveness of the survey and collecting data on growing crime types and criminal justice issues is through the administration of supplements to the core survey. BJS has been working with other Federal agencies, such as the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the Department of Education (ED), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to improve the capacity of the NCVS to respond to timely data and research needs through the development and administration of supplements.

For 2018 through 2021, the NCVS will have several rotating supplements (each with unique OMB numbers), which will remain in the field for six months. These supplements allow for the collection of detailed data on topics that are not included in the core NCVS. BJS also produces reports from each of the supplements and archives the data at ICPSR (www.icpsr.umich.edu). Each supplement is conducted under a separate OMB review, and the tentative schedule for the administration of these routine supplements is as follows:

July – December, 2018 Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS)

January – June, 2019 School Crime Supplement (SCS)

July – December, 2019 Supplemental Victimization Survey (SVS)

(covers stalking victimization)

January – June, 2020 Identity Theft Supplement (ITS)

July – December, 2020 Supplemental Fraud Survey (SFS)

Improved outreach and dissemination of crime data

One of the other major goals for the NCVS in 2018 through 2021 is improved outreach and data accessibility. Beginning in 2012, BJS began providing wider access to NCVS statistics though an on-line data analysis tool, the National Victimization Analysis Tool (NVAT). The NVAT is now a component of the NCVS project that allows users to examine NCVS data and generate tables on violent and property victimization by select victim, household, and incident characteristics. The NVAT data is updated annually and BJS will continue to improve upon the performance and capabilities of the tool and expand on the available variables (https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=nvat). Additionally, BJS and the Census Bureau are continuing to work on adding historic NCVS data files going back to the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (FSRDCs). The FSRDCs currently house data from the NCVS core survey from 2006 to 2016. This allows researchers who submit a justifiable proposal to access the geo-identified, restricted-use NCVS data files.

From 2018 through 2021, BJS statisticians will also use NCVS data to produce a number of timely and relevant reports and products. These reports are relevant to the priorities of the Department of Justice and the Office of Justice Programs, expressed needs and interests of other government agencies and the criminal justice community, current events, and methods for improving the usability and reliability of the NCVS, including research related to redesign projects. They are widely disseminated through the BJS website, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, the BJS JUSTSTATS listserv, which has about 6,100 members, and press releases circulated to the Associated Press and other major news sources. They also demonstrate the breadth of information collected through the NCVS, covering topics that stem from the design of the instrument and relate to each of the major sections of the survey instrument. Examples of recent and planned topical reports and products by each section of the NCVS include:

Topical Reports

1. Enumeration of crime rates

• Criminal Victimization – Annual reports that present estimates of rates and levels of violent and property crime victimization in the U.S.

(https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv16.pdf). Last published 2017.

• NCVS Victimization Analysis Tool (NVAT) – Online dynamic analysis tool, updated annually, that allows users to examine NCVS data and generate tables on violent and property victimization by select victim, household, and incident characteristics. Data are available for 1993 through 2016.

• Repeat Violent Victimization – Presents national data on the prevalence of repeat violent victimization and the characteristics of repeat violence (published 2017).

• Rape and Sexual Assault Against College-Aged Females – Compares the characteristics of rape and sexual assault victimization against females ages 18 to 24 who are enrolled and not enrolled in college (published 2014).

• Historical trend online data tool, 1973-1992 – Online dynamic analysis tool that allows users to examine data from the predecessor of the NCVS, the NCS (planned).

• Long term trends – Will combine data from the NCVS with its predecessor the National Crime Survey (NCS) to examine trends in victimization going back to the 1970s (planned).

2. Incident characteristics

• Trends in Household Property Crime Losses – Presents patterns and trends in the types of items stolen and the total and recovered losses attributed to household burglary, motor vehicle theft, and other theft (published 2013).

• Violence in the Workplace – Presents estimates on the extent of violence in the workplace. Last published 2013. Planned for 2018.

• Firearm Violence – Examines patterns and trends in nonfatal and fatal violent victimizations that involved a firearm. Last published 2013. Planned for 2018.

• Location of Criminal Victimization – Will examine patterns in victimization by location of incident (planned).

3. Victim characteristics

• Crime Against Persons with Disabilities – Annual Congressionally mandated report presents estimates of nonfatal violent victimizations against person 12 years old or older with disabilities (http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/capd0915st.pdf). Last published 2017.

• Children in Households with Violence – Presents estimates of the number and characteristics of children living in households in which one or more household member has experienced violent victimization (published 2012).

• Crime Against the Elderly – Presents estimates of the prevalence and victim, crime, and offender characteristics of victimizations against persons age 65 or older (published 2014).

• Household Poverty and Nonfatal Violent Victimization – Presents findings on the relationship between households that were above or below the federal poverty level and nonfatal violent victimization (published 2014).

• Indicators of School Crime and Safety – Annual report, produced jointly with the Department of Education, presents estimates of crime occurring at school or on the way to and from school against persons age 12 to 18 years of age (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/iscs16.pdf). Last published 2017.

4. Victim-offender relationship and offender characteristics

• Race and Hispanic Origin of Victims and Offenders – Presents estimates of violent victimization (rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault) by the race and Hispanic origin of victims and offenders, and examines expanded race of offender categories (published 2016).

• Co-Offending Among Adolescents In Violent Victimizations – Presents estimates of nonfatal violent victimizations perceived by the victim to be committed by adolescents ages 12 to 17 (published 2016).

• Nonfatal Domestic Violence – Presents estimates on nonfatal domestic violence, which includes victimization committed by current or former intimate partners (spouses, boyfriends or girlfriends), parents, children, siblings and other relatives (published 2014).

• Asian, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander Victims of Crime – Will examine patterns in violent and property victimization for Asian, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander victims of crime (planned).

5. Physical and emotional impact of victimization

• Violent Crime and Emotional Distress – Examines the psychological and physiological consequences of violent crime victimization (published 2014).

• Formal Help-Seeking in Violent Victimizations, 2009-2016 – Will examine patterns and trends in victim help-seeking following violent victimization (planned).

6. Reporting to police and police response

• Police Response to Domestic Violence – Presents data on nonfatal domestic violence victimizations reported to police, the police response to these victimizations, the prevalence of related arrests or charges, and criminal complaints signed against the offender (published 2017).

• Victimizations Reported to Police by Place – Presents data on victimizations reported to police across different types of areas in the U.S. (planned).

• Victimizations Not Reported to Police – Will presents patterns and trends in victimizations that go unreported and the reasons why victims do not report to police. Last published 2012. Planned for 2018.

7. Bias-motivated victimizations

• Hate Crime – Presents patterns and trends in victimizations motivated by racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, or disability bias. Last published 2017.

Each of these products provides unique information that cannot be ascertained from other sources of data and the public, government agencies, and the criminal justice community rely upon.

BJS also produces a number of technical and methodological reports as a part of the NCVS core project work.

Technical/Methodological Research

• Developmental Estimates Of Subnational Crime Rates Based On The National Crime Victimization Survey – Presents work on the use of small-area estimation to generate estimates of violent and property victimization in the 50 largest states and largest counties in the U.S. Published 2015.

• Assessing The Coverage And Reliability Of Subnational Geographic Identifiers In The NCVS Public-Use File – Presents research on the feasibility of and initial efforts at examining patterns and trends in crime for subnational, generic areas based on region, MSA, and population. Published 2015.

• Evaluation Of Direct Variance Estimation, Estimate Reliability, And Confidence Intervals For The National Crime Victimization Survey – Examines the benefits and drawbacks to each of the approaches for variance estimation, including issues related to variance estimation for counts, rates, percentages, grouped years of data (e.g., rolling averages, multi-year aggregation), and supplements, data file configuration and internal and external usability. Published 2015.

• Determining The Optimal Number Of Interview Waves In A Panel Survey With Application To The NCVS – Presents the results of a study that evaluated the data quality and cost of changing the NCVS from the current longitudinal design in which household members are interviewed every 6 months for a total of 7 times over a 3.5-year period to designs in which respondents are interviewed 1, 3, 4, or 5 times. Published 2016.

• Interviewing Conditions In The National Crime Victimization Survey – Describes the circumstances under which interviews are conducted with persons in the NCVS. Published 2016.

• Bounding Adjustment – Will examine how BJS should handle unbounded interviews, sample fatigue, and attrition/nonresponse when generating point estimates (planned).

• Measuring Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity with the NCVS – Will present findings from cognitive testing and initial data collection of sexual orientation and gender identity (planned).

• Estimates of Victimization for Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 2006-2015 – Will present direct victimization estimates for certain MSAs (planned).

• Utility of Adult Protective Services Data for Measuring Elder Abuse – Will evaluate the capacity to use data on adult protective services for measuring abuse of the elderly (planned).

• Methodological Research on Measuring Rape and Sexual Assault – Will evaluate approaches to collecting data on rape and sexual assault and present recommendations for the NCVS (planned).

• Imputation of Supplemental Homicide Report (SHR) Homicide Data – Will provide recommendations for imputing missing homicide data (planned).

• Pilot Test of the NCVS Subnational Sample Boost – Will describe the methodology and findings from the 11-state NCVS pilot sample boost.

• Criminal Victimization in the Most Populous States – Will present 1-year estimates of violent and property victimization in the most populous states (planned).

• Findings from the American Crime Victimization Survey – A Complement to the NCVS – Will describe findings on perceptions of police and community safety from a 2-year field test of a companion study to the NCVS (planned).

Data Users and Stakeholders

The reports and data generated through the NCVS are of use and interest to a wide range of audiences, including the government agencies, the criminal justice community, and the public.

Government Agencies

Because the NCVS is the only ongoing vehicle for producing data related to a broad spectrum of subjects related to crime and crime victimization, legislators and policymakers at all levels of government rely on the NCVS data. For example, Congressional debates on bills concerning victim compensation, gun control, crime and unemployment, and development of crime prevention programs for the elderly have used the NCVS data. Also, Federal executive departments have used the NCVS data to support development of programs related to a broad variety of issues, including violence against women, intimate partner violence, violence against racial and ethnic groups including American Indians, school crime, juvenile justice and crime against the elderly. Some specific examples of government agencies that make use of the NCVS data include the following:

Department of Justice

Within the Department of Justice, the importance and utility of the NCVS are recognized, and the data are used for various purposes. The Justice Department supports BJS’s efforts to release state estimates of violent and property victimization (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-supports-bjs-s-efforts-release-state-estimates-crime-national-crime). The Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) has used the NCVS data to estimate the ratio of victims that receive crime victim fund assistance to the total number of victimizations and to identify vulnerable populations not receiving assistance. OVC has also used NCVS data to discuss improvements and gaps in the provision of victim services for congressional hearings and has links to a number of BJS reports on homicide trends, identity theft, the provision of victim services, and hate crime on their website (https://ovc.ncjrs.gov/Publications.aspx?TopicID=2#tabs2).

Department of Education

The NCVS is used to measure nonfatal victimizations at school in order to inform the nation on the current nature of crime in schools and the prevalence of students victimized at school. These findings are released in the annual report, Indicators of School Crime and Safety. In addition, the National Center for Education Statistics sponsors the School Crime Supplement to the NCVS, which is fielded every other year.

Federal Trade Commission

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) worked with BJS to develop and fund the Identity Theft Supplement (ITS) to the NCVS. The FTC relies on the ITS for data on the prevalence of identity theft, how personal information is obtained by perpetrators, and the characteristics of victims. These types of data assist the FTC in identifying populations that may be particularly vulnerable and appropriately targeting knowledge and prevention campaigns. A report based on the 2014 ITS is available at http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vit14.pdf. The 2016 ITS report is due out in 2018 and the 2018 ITS will be in the field from January through July of 2018.

In addition, the 2017 Supplemental Fraud Survey (SFS) data on the prevalence of financial fraud and the characteristics of victims will assist agencies like the FTC in identifying populations that may be particularly vulnerable, and appropriately targeting awareness and prevention campaigns.

Department of Health and Human Services

The Department of Health and Human Services relies on NCVS data on nonfatal workplace victimizations to identify occupations and workplaces at high risk for violence and to develop guidelines for dealing with workplace violence. The most recent BJS reports on this topic, Workplace Violence, 1993-2009, and Workplace Violence Against Government Employees, 1994-2011 are available at http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbse&sid=56.

Other Federal Agencies

The 2017 SFS data on the prevalence of financial fraud and the characteristics of victims will assist agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) in identifying populations that may be particularly vulnerable, and appropriately targeting awareness and prevention campaigns. Policymakers would also benefit from data assessing the magnitude of financial fraud in the United States. These data will help inform legislative and other efforts to help protect consumers and the populace.

Educational Institutions

Many researchers use the NCVS data to prepare reports and scholarly publications. NCVS public-use data files housed at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan are downloaded thousands of times each year. The downloaded data are used in conjunction with research projects in a number of academic disciplines, including sociology, criminology, psychology, and political science. Researchers use the NCVS information to advance the study of various issues including why certain persons are victimized more than others are; the reasons why persons do or do not report crime incidents to the police; victimizations against particular subpopulations, domestic violence, rape, gang crime, multiple victimizations, and more. A list of some of the more recent articles follows:

Ansari, S., & He, N. (2017). Explaining the UCR-NCVS convergence: A time series analysis. Asian Journal of Criminology, 12(1), 39-62.

Baumer, E.P., Velez, M.B., & Rosenfeld, R. (2018). Bringing crime trends back into criminology: A critical assessment of the literature and a blueprint for future inquiry. Annual Review of Criminology, 1.

Beck, A.J., & Blumstein, A. (2017). Racial disproportionality in U.S. state prisons: Accounting for the effects of racial and ethnic differences in criminal involvement, arrests, sentencing, and time served. Journal of Quantitative Criminology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10940-017-9361-x.

Cho, Sujung, Hong, Jun S., Espelage, Dorothy L., Choi, Kyung-Shick (2017). Applying the lifestyle routine activities theory to understand physical and nonphysical peer victimization. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma.

Cooc, North, Gee, Kevin A (2014). National trends in school victimization among Asian American adolescents. Journal of Adolescence. 37, (6), 839-849.

Eckberg, D. (2014). Trends in Conflict Uniform Crime Reports, the National Crime Victimization Surveys, and the Lethality of Violent Crime. Homicide Studies, 19, 58-87.

Hart, T.C. (2013). Violent victimization of college students: Findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey in Campus Crime: Legal, Social, and Policy Perspectives. J. Sloan & B. Fisher (eds). Charles C. Thomas pp. 141-157.

Hemenway, D., & Solnick, S.J. (2015). The epidemiology of self-defense gun use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007–2011. Preventative Medicine. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.03.029.

Kaylen, Maria, Pridemore, William Alex, Roche, Sean Patrick (2017). The impact of changing demographic composition on aggravated assault victimization during the great American crime decline. Criminal Justice Review. 42, (3), 291-314.

Kaylen, Maria T., Pridemore, William Alex (2015). Measuring violent victimization: Rural, suburban, and urban police notification and emergency room treatment. Journal of Rural Studies. 39, 239-246.

Lauritsen, J.L., Rezey, M.L., & Heimer, K. (2014). Violence and Economic Conditions in the United States, 1973-2011: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity Patterns in the National Crime Victimization Survey. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 30: 7-28.

Rennison, C.M., DeKeseredy, W.S., & Dragiewicz, M. (2012). Urban, Suburban, and Rural Variations in Separation/Divorce Rape/Sexual Assault: Results from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Feminist Criminology, 7, 282–297.

Rennison, C.M., DeKeseredy, W.S., & Dragiewicz, M. (2013). Intimate Relationship Status Variations in Violence against Women: Urban, Suburban and Rural Differences. Violence Against Women. 19, 1312–1330.

Salari, S., & Maxwell, C.D. (2017). Lethal intimate partner violence in later life: Understanding measurements, strengths, and limitations of research. Journal of Elder Abuse and Neglect. 28, (4), 235-262.

Scheitle, C.P., & Hansmann, M. Religion-related hate crimes: Data, trends, and limitations. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 55: 859-873.

Siddique, J.A. (2016). Age, marital status, and risk of sexual victimization: Similarities and differences across victim-offender relationships. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 15, 2556-2575.

Slocum, L.A. (2017). The effect of prior police contact on victimization reporting: Results from the Police-Public Contact and National Crime Victimization Surveys. Journal of Quantitative Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-017-9345-x.

Vidourek, R.A., King, K.A., & Merianos, A.L. (2016). School bullying and student trauma: Fear and avoidance associated with victimization. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community. 44, (2), 121-129.

Wong, J.S., & Balemba, S. (2016). Resisting during sexual assault: A meta-analysis of the effects on injury. Aggression and Violent Behavior. 28, 1-11.

Wong, J.S., & Balemba, S. (2016). The effect of victim resistance on rape completion: A meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, and Abuse, 1-14.

Wong, T.M.L., & Van de Schoot, R. (2012). The effect of sex offenders' sex on reporting crimes to the police. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 27, 1276-1292.

Xie, M., & Lauritsen, J.L. (2012). Racial context and crime reporting: A test of Black's stratification hypothesis. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 28, 265-293.

Xie, M., & Macdowall, D. (2014). Impact of Victimization on Residential Mobility: Explaining Racial and Ethnic Patterns Using the National Crime Victimization Survey. Criminology, 52, 553-587.

Yun, Ilhong, Lee, Julak (2014). Revisiting the effects of self-protective behaviors on the risk of injury in assaults against women. Violence and Victims. 29, (1), 171-192.

Others

Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Financial Fraud Research Center

Researchers from the Financial Fraud Research Center (FFRC), a joint project of the Stanford Center on Longevity and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation (FINRA Foundation) collaborated with BJS to develop a standardized fraud classification scheme.³ This was then translated into survey questions that were administered on the Supplemental Fraud Survey (SFS) to the NCVS.

Independent groups also use the NCVS for policy analysis, policy recommendations, testimony before Congress, and documentation for use in courts. Examples include the following:

National Crime Prevention Council

Uses the NCVS data to develop programs on crime prevention and to train and educate individuals, communities, and organizations throughout the United States on effective crime prevention practices.

Victim Advocacy Groups

Use the data to identify vulnerable populations, crime victims that do not receive necessary criminal justice system resources, and to draw attention to the emotional, physical, and economic consequences of victimization.

Community Groups

Use the data to develop neighborhood watch programs.

Law enforcement agencies

Use the NCVS findings to gain a better understand the types of crimes that are and are not reported to the police and what percentage of crime goes unreported. Also use the NCVS findings to understand the reasons why victims do not report to the police.

Print and broadcast media

The media have become increasingly familiar with the NCVS data and the public regularly sees news articles and press releases containing NCVS data. Findings from the NCVS appear regularly on a host of crime-related topics in a wide variety of contexts on television, radio, in print, and online.

Modernization and methodological developments to increase utility

In early 2014, BJS initiated the NCVS Instrument Redesign and Testing Project through a competitive award to Westat, Inc. The NCVS Instrument Redesign and Testing Project is a major multi-year effort to overhaul the existing survey instrument. The overarching objective of the project is to provide scientific and technical support for the redesign and testing of the NCVS roster control card, crime screener (NCVS-1), and crime incident (NCVS-2) instruments in support of BJS’s efforts related to increasing the efficiency, reliability, and utility of the NCVS. Through the project, BJS aims to evaluate and modernize the organization and content of the NCVS; improve the efficiency of the instruments and the current core-supplement design; and develop a procedure for introducing routine improvements to the survey in order to capture emerging crime types and time-relevant topics. The project work is expected to be completed in 2020.

One of the first steps in the project was a comprehensive assessment of the instrument to determine which survey items are being utilized and how, which survey items are problematic in their language and placement, and where there are gaps in the content of the instrument. The initial assessment provided a better understanding of the substantive and procedural issues with the instrument and helped to identify areas where the content could be improved to enhance current knowledge of victimization and its correlates. Through the initial assessment work, several major areas in need of modernization became apparent, including the need for 1. Improved victim demographics; 2. Non-crime questions on perceptions of police and community safety; 3. Enhanced measures of victim help-seeking; 4. Improved measurement of sensitive crimes like intimate partner violence and rape and sexual assault and 5. Increased flexibility in the instrument design to allow for the measurement of new and emerging crime types.

Improved victim demographics

Because the project work for the NCVS Instrument Redesign and Testing Project and recommended changes to the NCVS instruments will not be completed until 2020, BJS felt that important near term changes could be made to improve the relevance and utility of the NCVS without affecting the victimization rates. One area in need of modernization to better address policy-relevant questions was the socio-demographic information collected about respondents. Based on initial redesign efforts new socio-demographic measures were added to the NCVS beginning July 1, 2016: veteran status, citizenship, sexual orientation, and gender identity. In addition, disability status is now asked of all respondents and the household income response categories have been expanded. These measures have been identified in other research as subgroups of interest to key stakeholders and correlates to victimization. For example, sexual orientation and gender identity are recognized in the 2013 reauthorized Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Additionally, the inclusion of these items will allow researchers to better understand the relationships between these variables and experiences with criminal victimization. These new socio-demographic measures were approved by OMB through a non-substantive modification to the NCVS under the existing clearance (OMB No. 1121-0111).

Upon implementation in July of 2016, questions pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity were initially administered to all respondents age 16 or older at their first, third, fifth, or seventh interview, or if they had not been asked the questions before. In April 2018, BJS submitted a proposal to raise the minimum age at which questions pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity are asked, from 16 to 18, out of concern over the potential sensitivity of these items. When comments on the proposed revision were solicited as part of the overall review and approval process through a 30-day notice in the Federal Register, BJS received numerous comments in response to this proposal. In weighing these comments along with BJS’s goals to preserve the utility of the survey data, BJS amended the proposal.

As a result, BJS determined that the sexual orientation and gender identity questions will be retained on the instrument and will be administered only to victims age 16 or older. In addition, these questions will only be asked once of all victims during the time they remain in sample, rather than asking at their first, third, fifth, and seventh interview. With these revisions to the questionnaire, BJS will be able to produce victimization estimates (counts and percentages of victims) by sexual orientation and gender identity for persons age 16 or older. BJS will use other federal data collections to produce rates of victimization by sexual orientation. The change will be implemented no later than July 1, 2019, pending OMB approval of the requested substantive revision.

Non-crime questions

Another key component of the redesigned instrument will be building a series of questions pertaining to residents’ perception of safety, disorder, police legitimacy and satisfaction with police, known as ‘non-crime’ questions. Recent events in places such as Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD have demonstrated the need for data on residents’ perceptions of police and for understanding the relationship between experiencing victimization, reporting crime to police, and perceived police legitimacy. Questions on satisfaction with police, police legitimacy, fear, perceptions of community disorder, and feelings of safety will be asked of all NCVS respondents, not just those who experienced a victimization. These items are intended to increase the relevance of the survey for the majority of respondents who never experience a victimization. Additionally, because the items are answered by all respondents the estimates are expected to have stronger precision at the subnational level compared to national-level victimization rates.

The data from these ‘non-crime’ questions will have utility for members of the law enforcement community, as well as researchers and policy makers. The BJS Crime Indicators Working Group (CIWG), which was comprised of members of the law enforcement community provided knowledge and insight into contemporary challenges facing the law enforcement fields, noted that public perceptions of crime and safety are often as important as indicators of crime problems, as the crime rates themselves. The ‘non-crime’ questions could be used to address the expressed concerns of the CIWG and other law enforcement officials who want to be able to assess the relationship between demographic characteristics of residents and their perceptions of neighborhood safety and satisfaction with police.

Victim help-seeking

The redesigned instrument will also better address stakeholder needs with a more extensive series of questions on formal and informal help-seeking behavior. Despite the fact that the federal government allocates billions of dollars a year to provide services and compensation to crime victims, very little data currently exists about who receives this money and where there are gaps in the services and compensation provided. The current NCVS instrument asks only two questions related to whether the victim received victim services.

The Office for Victims of Crime laid out the need for more comprehensive data in their Vision 21 report (http://ovc.ncjrs.gov/vision21/pdfs/Vision21_Report.pdf) and BJS’s redesigned instrument will enhance the capacity of the survey to measure both formal and informal victim help-seeking behaviors. Plans for the redesigned instrument include expanding the information collected about why victims do or do not receive formal services, and among those that do, the type of assistance they received and their levels of satisfaction with the assistance received. The redesign effort will also add questions about informal help-seeking behaviors, such as speaking to a family member, friend, or religious leader and seek to improve current NCVS questions about the consequences of victimization including injuries, receipt of medical and mental health care, and emotional reactions following a victimization.

Measurement of rape and sexual assault

BJS is also improving the responsiveness of the NCVS to measurement issues with the collection of data on sensitive topics like intimate partner violence and rape and sexual assault. To this end, BJS has initiated several projects to identify, develop, and test the optimal methods for collecting self-report data on rape and sexual assault. The findings from these projects will be incorporated into the instrument redesign work.

In June 2011, BJS charged an expert panel from the National Research Council's Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) to examine conceptual and methodological issues surrounding existing U.S. survey statistics on rape and sexual assault and to recommend the optimal methods for obtaining this type of sensitive data on an ongoing basis. In 2014, the panel produced recommendations for the measurement of rape and sexual assault in the NCVS in a publication titled, Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault.⁴

In September 2011, BJS also made a competitive award to Westat, Inc., to develop and test two different survey designs for collecting self-report data on rape and sexual assault. One design is to be an optimal design identified in collaboration with the CNSTAT panel. The other will be similar to designs used in the public health field that collect data on rape and sexual assault (e.g., National Women’s Study and the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Surveillance System). BJS will compare estimates from these two alternative designs with estimates from the current NCVS. Field testing of these alternative designs is completed with findings expected to be released in 2018. The recommendations from these findings will be incorporated into the redesign work through improvements to the screeners to measure rape and sexual assault, the transition to a self-administered survey mode for increased respondent privacy, and the testing of a separate supplemental survey instrument to collect rape and sexual assault victimization estimates.

Expansion and enhanced measurement of crime types

Another area of focus is on improving the measurement of and increasing the crime types covered by the survey. In 2016, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a report recommending that BJS turn a focus toward measuring new and emerging crimes in addition to the current street crimes already included on the NCVS.⁵ The current NCVS captures rape and sexual assault, robbery, physical assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle through the core survey instrument and uses routine supplements to collect information on other crime types like identity theft and stalking. One strength of the NCVS is its ability to capture hard-to-measure crimes. One of the goals of the redesign is to expand the crimes collected to incorporate a broader range of crimes, including some, like fraud, that are not typically reported through official police statistics. In 2017, a supplement on financial fraud victimization was added to the NCVS. In order to continue to expand the crimes collected by the NCVS while maintaining or reducing burden, the redesign effort will also focus on making the survey instrument more flexible including exploring options such as incorporating a modular approach which will allow for multiple modules (more than the current supplement structure allows) to be in the field at once.

Self-administered mode

The anticipated changes to and improvement of the types of crimes measured by the NCVS, may require changes to the survey methodology to ensure that the information collected is accurate and reliable. Through the NCVS redesign project, BJS is examining the feasibility of using self-administered approaches, an effort that includes many potential benefits but also some challenges. The NCVS collects sensitive information about respondents’ victimization experiences, and using self-administration will increase privacy for respondents. In addition, moving to a self-administered survey will cut costs for data collection. The redesigned instrument will be programmed and tested using a web-based self-administered mode.

Expand and enhance other sources of data related to the NCVS

To supplement the NCVS data and further improve the responsiveness of the BJS Victimization Statistics Unit to priority victimization issues, BJS has also been working to develop new data collections or improve existing data collections related to victims that are separate from the NCVS but can be used in conjunction with NCVS data. To this end, BJS is in the process of conducting work to: 1. Collect data from victim service agencies on the types of services provided and victims served (OMB No. 1121-0355); 2. Develop a lower cost companion survey to the NCVS that can be used to generate comparable local level estimates of victimization (OMB No. 1121-0351); and 3. Develop a Victim-Offender Overlap Survey to better understand the relationship between victimization and offenders. These projects and data collections will enhance the information generated by the Victimization Statistics Unit and when used in conjunction with NCVS data, particularly at the subnational level, will provide a more comprehensive picture of victimization and the response to victimization in the U.S.

Inform and improve methodology

Additionally, in order to improve the NCVS methodology, BJS has also invested in a support center for the NCVS called the National Victimization Survey Support Program (NVSSP). The researchers in the NVSSP, on contract from RTI International, have substantial expertise in survey methodology and data analysis. In addition to work related to the development of the NCVS subnational program, these researchers are working on a number of projects to improve the precision and reliability of victimization estimates. These projects include research on: cognitive interviewing of juveniles, improving measurement of rape and sexual assault, and developing alternative sample designs, and weighting and bounding approaches.

3. Use of Information Technology

Respondents to the NCVS are individuals living in households. The Census Bureau collects the data using in-person and telephone interviews. In July 2006, field representatives began conducting interviews using computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) methods. Paper and pencil interviewing (PAPI) was discontinued when data collection with CAPI began. The NCVS continues to use CAPI to reduce cost and improve data quality, streamline processing, and eliminate the need for two different modes.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

The NCVS does not duplicate any other effort in the field. There is no other omnibus survey that can be used to generate annual national statistics on a range of crimes and victim responses to crimes regardless of whether the victimization was reported to the police.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) data covers a similar range of crimes as the NCVS, but is limited to only those crimes known to the police. The UCR data is also limited by a lack of information on the characteristics of victims and incidents.

The FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) also includes similar crimes as the NCVS (as well as a number of additional offense types) and collects basic demographic data on the age, sex, and race of victim and offenders. Like the UCR, NIBRS includes only crimes known to police. It is also limited by a lack of information on the victim response to criminal incidents. To date, about a third of all law enforcement agencies report NIBRS data to the FBI.⁶ These reporting agencies cover only a portion of the population of the United States, meaning that the data are not nationally representative.

4. Efforts to Minimize Burden

N/A. The NCVS is a household-based sample and does not impact small businesses or small entities.

4. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection

There are several reasons why it is necessary to do an ongoing collection of the NCVS data. First, to produce annual estimates and track year-to-year change in crime, data must be collected on an ongoing basis. Second, because of the relative rarity of crime and declining crime rates, rolling averages often must be used to increase the precision of national estimates that are based on small sample sizes, such as estimates for populations like the elderly and victims of sexual assault. Rolling averages are also necessary for generating precise state-level estimates of victimization. To produce rolling averages and generate victimization estimates for subpopulations, specific crime characteristics, and at the state and local levels, annual data are necessary. Third, if the data were collected at a single point in time biannually or annually rather than on a continuous basis, the survey would be more costly due to start-up and interviewer training costs.

If the NCVS program were discontinued or conducted on a less frequent basis, executive and legislative branch policymakers would no longer have detailed crime and victimization data, including the demographic, victim response, and incident characteristic information not collected through the FBI, available when making decisions or formulating legislation. Additionally, there would be no reliable measure of change in the rate of serious crime for the United States that includes crimes not known to the police.

7. Special Circumstances

N/A. Collection is consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.9.

8. Adherence to 5 CFR 1320.8(d) and Outside Consultations

The research under this clearance is consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.6 and 5 CFR 1320.8(d). Comments on the overall NCVS data collection effort were solicited in the Federal Register, Vol. 82, No. 231 on December 4, 2017 and in Vol. 83, No. 53, March 19, 2018. In response to the Federal Register submission, the following comments were received:

• The New York State Office of Victim Services suggested adding additional questions related to victim services and expanding response categories for not reporting to police.

BJS responded via email to these suggestions. While the suggested additions would require extensive cognitive testing and could not be feasibly added to the current instrument, BJS will consider the expansion of victim service questions and response categories for not reporting to police through the Instrument Redesign and Testing Project.

Upon implementation in July of 2016, questions pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity were administered to all respondents age 16 or older at their first, third, fifth, or seventh interview, or if they had not been asked the questions before. In April 2018, BJS submitted a proposal to raise the minimum age at which questions pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity are asked, from 16 to 18, out of concern over the potential sensitivity of these items. Comments on the previous proposed substantive revision to the NCVS data collection to increase the minimum age at which the sexual orientation and gender identity questions are asked to 18 were solicited through a 30-day notice in the Federal Register, Vol. 83, No. 70 on April 11, 2018. BJS received a total of 87 comments from individuals and organizations. BJS also received a letter of opposition signed by 55 Members of the House of Representatives and a letter of opposition signed by 10 State Attorneys General. See Attachment 7 for a synopsis of the public comments that were received.

Upon review of these responses, BJS weighed the concern over potential sensitivity of the questions with the goal of preserving the overall utility of the data. BJS determined that the sexual orientation and gender identity questions will be retained on the instrument and will be administered only to victims age 16 or older. In addition, these questions will be asked only once of all victims during the time they remain in sample, rather than being asked at their first, third, fifth, and seventh interview. With these revisions to the questionnaire, BJS will be able to produce victimization estimates (counts and percentages of victims) by sexual orientation and gender identity for persons age 16 or older. BJS will use other federal data collections to produce rates of victimization by sexual orientation. The change will be implemented no later than July 1, 2019, pending OMB approval of the requested substantive revision.

Outside Consultations:

In the process of developing the subnational program, increasing the efficiency and productivity of the survey methodology, and redesigning and modernizing the survey instrument, BJS consults with a variety of data users, as well as federal government and outside experts with knowledge and experience in criminal justice research and survey methodology. Recent consultations include:

• Dr. Bonnie Fisher, University of Cincinnati

• Rachel Hansen, Statistician, National Center for Education Statistics

• Dr. Dan Hartley, Coordinator for Workplace Violence Prevention Research, National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health

• Dr. Allyson Holbrook, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Dr. Kristy Holtfreter, Arizona State University

• Aviva Kurash, International Association of Chiefs of Police

• Dr. Frauke Kreuter, Survey Methodologist, Joint Program of Survey Methodology

• Dr. Janet Lauritsen, University of Missouri, St. Louis

• Dr. Colin Loftin, University of Albany

• Dr. James Lynch, Chair, Department of Criminology, University of Maryland

• Anne Menard, Chief Executive Officer, National Resource Center on Domestic Violence

• Dr. Michael Reisig, Arizona State University

• Dr. Wes Skogan, Northwestern University

• Dr. Min Xie, University of Maryland

Measurement of sexual orientation and gender identity in the NCVS

BJS consulted with several stakeholders, advocates, and researchers on the proposed measures of sexual orientation and gender identity that were added to the NCVS in July of 2016. In May of 2016, BJS met with stakeholders in the LGBT community to consult on the sexual orientation and gender identity measures that were being proposed. These included members from the Williams Institute, Human Rights Campaign, National LGBTQ Task Force, National Center for Transgender Rights, Lambda Legal, Transgender Law Center, and Just Detention International. BJS also serves as active members of the Federal Interagency Working Group on Measuring Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. BJS consulted with members of the Working Group and OMB throughout the development and initial administration of the sexual orientation and gender identity measures.

The current revision request will only administer the sexual orientation and gender identity questions to persons age 16 or older who self-identify as a crime victim. In addition, BJS will only administer these questions once to all victims.

9. Paying Respondents

N/A. Payment or gifts to respondents are not provided in return for participation in the survey.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

All NCVS information about individuals or households is confidential by law under Title 34, United States Code, Sections 10231 and 10134 and Title 13, United States Code, Section 9. By law, the Census Bureau is not permitted to publicly release survey responses in a way that could identify survey respondents or their households. Census Bureau employees who may see the survey responses are sworn to preserve this confidentiality. Even BJS, as the sponsor of the survey, is not authorized to see or handle the data in its raw form. All unique and identifying information is scrambled or suppressed before it is provided to BJS to analyze. Data are maintained in secure environments and in restricted access locations within the Census Bureau. All data provided to BJS must meet the confidentiality requirements set forth by the Disclosure Review Board at the Census Bureau.

In a letter from the Director of the Census Bureau, sent to all households in the survey, respondents are informed of these laws and assured that it requires the Census Bureau to keep all information provided by the respondent confidential. The letter also informs respondents that this is a voluntary survey. Furthermore, in addition to the legal authority and voluntary nature of the survey, the letter informs respondents of the public reporting burden for this collection of information, the principal purposes for collecting the information, and the various uses for the data after it is collected which satisfies the requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

The NCVS asks about experiences such as rape and other types of victimization that may be sensitive for some respondents. Given the objective of the NCVS--to estimate the amount of victimization in the Nation--this is necessary as BJS would not be able to provide a complete picture of nonfatal violent victimization without asking about such experiences. NCVS interviewers receive training and guidance on how to ask sensitive questions. The importance of estimating crime levels, as well as the potential value of detailed information about victimization for designing crime prevention strategies, is explained to any respondent who seems hesitant to answer. All respondents have the option of refusing to answer any question.

In 2015, the Office for Justice Programs Institutional Review Board (IRB) declared the NCVS exempt from review and approval by an Institutional Review Board. Pursuant to the OJP Instruction for Protection of Human Subjects and Privacy Certification Requirements, the NCVS was declared exempt from review because the research is covered by provisions of the confidentiality statute at 34 USC 10231 and the respondents’ confidentiality is protected under Title 13 USC 9. The only involvement of human subjects consists of the administration of an interview questionnaire and the only predictable potential harm is release of the information with identifiers.

12. Estimate of Respondent Burden

Table 1 shows the estimated respondent reporting burden for both interviewed and noninterviewed respondents. The estimates are based on anticipated 2018 interview/noninterview counts, including the 22-state sample boost that has been in place since January of 2016. The current annual inventory is based on the actual hours required to collect the data from the NCVS and accounts for a full 12-month cycle of data collection.

13. Estimate of Respondent’s Cost Burden

There are no costs to respondents other than that of their time to respond.

14. Costs to Federal Government

There are no capital or start-up costs associated with the data collection.

Table 2 shows a breakdown of the estimated annual cost to the Federal Government for activities associated with the national NCVS data collection and the sample boost in 22 states. The Census Bureau will act as the data collection agent for the NCVS at an estimated cost of about $40.5 million for the 2018 cycle. Census will develop, test, and finalize the NCVS instrument, develop all data collection support and training materials, train interviewers and support staff, and collect, process, and disseminate the NCVS data. BJS staff time costs about $1.1 million. BJS of the U.S. Department of Justice bears all costs of the survey. The estimated annual cost to the Federal Government for the NCVS is $41.7 million in FY 2018. The requested revision will have a negligible impact on survey costs.

Table 2. Estimated costs for NCVS
Estimated U.S. Census Bureau costs
Division			Estimated Cost
DSMD (Sample Design and Estimation)			$1,250,760
POP (Population Estimate Support)			$4,220
ADSD (Instrument Development)			$1,516,280
DSD (Data Processing)			$1,448,420
FLD (Data Collection)			$31,621,680
LCC (Telephone Centers)			$134,080
NPC (Data Collection Support)			$960,610
ADDP (Survey Operations and Project Management)			$3,580,210
Subtotal: estimated costs for Census Bureau			$40,516,270
Estimated BJS Costs
Staff salaries	Base salary	Fringe	Salary estimates
GS15 Supervisory Statistician (1 @ 100%)	$150,000	$42,000	$192,000
GS-15 Chief Editor, BJS (1 @ 25%)	$150,000	$42,000	$48,000
GS14 – Statistician, BJS (1 @ 100%)	$130,000	$36,400	$166,400
GS13 – Statistician, BJS (4 @ 100%)	$110,000	$30,800	$563,200
Subtotal: Salary and fringe (28%)			$969,600
Other administrative costs of salary & fringe (15%)			$145,440
Subtotal: estimated BJS costs			$1,115,040
Subtotal: Annual estimated BJS and U.S. Census Bureau costs			$41,631,310
Total: Estimated costs @ 3 years			$124,893,930

15. Reasons for Change in Burden

The estimated total annual hours for 2018 through 2021 (120,810) is greater than the 106,399 requested in 2015 because the NCVS sample was redesigned and increased to reflect changes in the U.S. population based on the 2010 Decennial Census and to allow for estimation for the 22 most populous states. In 2016, a redesign of the NCVS sample was necessary to account for shifts in the population. The increased sample size will allow BJS to generate three-year rolling average estimates of victimization in these 22 states with adequate precision (average RSE 10%), in addition to the regular national level estimates.

The current requested revision to only administer sexual orientation and gender identity questions to crime victims will have a negligible impact on respondent burden.

16. Project Schedule and Publication Plans

For collection years 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, the NCVS is in the field from January 1 through December 31^st. Interviewing for the national sample and boost sample occurs simultaneously and begins on the first of each month. The CAPI interviewing is conducted over the entire interview month. Data processing is conducted on both a monthly and quarterly basis. Because the survey uses a 6-month recall period, crime incidence data for a given calendar year are not fully collected until June of the following year. However, annual estimates are produced and published based on data collected during a calendar year (collection year) rather than on crimes occurring during a calendar year (data year) starting with the 1996 data. Annual collection year estimates for the nation are provided to BJS approximately in April of each year.

BJS releases information collected in the NCVS in a variety of formats. Each summer BJS releases a bulletin, Criminal Victimization, which provides annual national estimates from the preceding year of survey data collection, including rates and counts of violent and property crime, characteristics of crimes and victims, year-to-year change estimates and trend estimates. Simultaneous with the release of the annual Criminal Victimization bulletin, the online National Victimization Analysis Tool (NVAT) is updated with the most recent year of data.

Once the data are released by BJS through Criminal Victimization and the NVAT, the data are archived at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. Researchers can download public use files of the NCVS data and codebooks to conduct their own analyses. The public use files are produced by the Census Bureau and ICPSR. All information that might identify individual respondents is removed from the files prior to being sent to the ICPSR.

To further enhance the utility of the data, in addition to the public use files housed at ICPSR, the geographically identified NCVS files are also now available in the Census Bureau secure federal statistical research data centers (FSRDC). The FSRDC files can be accessed by researchers who submit a proposal for the research they plan to conduct using the data and agree to all confidentiality and protected use constraints. Data are available through ICPSR and the FSRDCs by the fall of the year following collection.

As noted above, during the course of each year, BJS also releases several in-depth analytical reports and other papers that provide information on some of the broad range of topics covered in the survey. These reports reflect findings from redesign work regarding topics of interest to the public, as well as methodological reports on improving the usability and reliability of victimization estimates without increasing survey costs. Topics include series or repeat victimization; patterns and trends in victim and offender race; harm caused by violent crime; intimate partner violence; age patterns in violent victimization; Hispanic victims of crime; victimization of persons with disabilities; long-term trends in victimization; workplace violence; hate crime; rape and sexual assault; criminal victimization by place; help-seeking patterns among victims; and police response and follow-up activities. See the specific list of planned topical reports under section 2. Needs and Uses.

17. Display of Expiration Date

The OMB control number and expiration date are provided to each household in sample as part of the introductory letter sent prior to each enumeration period as well as displayed on the CAPI laptop or read during the interview describing the nature of the survey and authority to collect the information. A screen shot is included in the attachments. OMB granted BJS two three-month waivers of the requirement to include the OMB expiration date on the NCVS questionnaire and pre-contact letter sent to sampled households in September, October, November, and December of 2018, and January and February of 2019. BJS will resume the inclusion of the expiration date as soon as it is practicable following OMB clearance.

18. Exception to the Certificate Statement

N/A. There are no exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act

Submissions. Collection is consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.9.

1 In this document, the NCVS core instrument refers to the NCVS control card (NCVS-500), NCVS-1 (Basic Screen Questionnaire), and NCVS-2 (Crime Incident Report). In general, the NCVS core project or the NCVS core work refers to all efforts related to the NCVS core instrument as well as to the broader, overall NCVS operation.

2 The recommendations are contained in two reports, Surveying Victims: Options for Conducting the National Crime Victimization Survey (National Research Council, 2008, https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12090/surveying-victims-options-for-conducting-the-national-crime-victimization-survey) and Ensuring the Quality, Credibility, and Relevance of U.S. Justice Statistics (National Research Council, 2009, https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12671/ensuring-the-quality-credibility-and-relevance-of-us-justice-statistics).

3 http://longevity.stanford.edu/financial-fraud-research-center/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Full-Taxonomy-report.pdf

4 Available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/18605/estimating-the-incidence-of-rape-and-sexual-assault.

5 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2016). Modernizing crime statistics – report 1: Defining and classifying crime. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

6 Details on NIBRS reporting are available through the FBI’s website: https://ucr.fbi.gov/nibrs-overview.