National Crime Surveys: Reverse Record Check Studies: Washington, DC, San Jose, and Baltimore, 1970-1971

These surveys were part of a series of pretests conducted during the early 1970s to reveal problems associated with doing a nationwide study on victimization. They were done to determine the most effective reference period to use when questioning respondents in order to gain the fullest and most reliable information, to measure the degree to which respondents move incidents occurring outside the reference period into that period when questioned, and to explore the possibility of identifying incidents by a few broad general questions as opposed to a series of more specific probing questions.