National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS), 2000

The primary purpose of the National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS) was to assemble tract-level crime and sociodemographic data for cities across the United States in order to permit analyses of the sources of crime for "communities" of different racial-ethnic and class composition. The NNCS also sought to examine the extent to which the causes of crime in communities are contingent on the types of geographic region, labor market, or other contextual characteristics. To fulfill these purposes, the NNCS compiled crime and sociodemographic data for census tracts in a representative sample of large United States cities for 2000. The dataset includes: (1) tract-level crime data pertaining to seven of the FBI's crime index offenses; (2) tract-level information on social disorganization, structural disadvantage, socioeconomic inequality, mortgage lending, and other control variables garnered from the 2000 United States Census of Population and Housing Summary File 3 (SF3) and other publicly available sources; (3) city-level information for the city in which the tract is located, focused on labor market structure, socioeconomic inequality, population change, and other control variables; and (4) metropolitan area data for the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) or Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area (PMSA) in which the tract is located, focused on labor market structure, socioeconomic inequality, population change, and other control variables (also taken from the 2000 Census and other publicly available sources). The NNCS contains data for 9,593 census tracts in 91 cities in 64 metropolitan areas. (Please see the collection note section for additional information about variable naming.)