International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS), 1989-2000

The International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS) is a far-reaching program of fully standardized surveys investigating householders' experience of crime in different countries. The data were collected in four waves: 1989, 1992, 1996, and 2000. The main focus of the ICVS is whether the respondent was a victim of theft of or from vehicles, other thefts, vandalism, robbery, pickpocketing, sexual harassment or violence, or assault. The surveys also investigated the frequency of victimization, reasons for not reporting a crime to the police, familiarity with the offender in the case of a sexual offense, physical violence, injuries, fear of crime in the respondent's local area, use of help agencies for victims, satisfaction with police behavior, preferred legal sanctions, punishment, and length of detention for offenders, safety precautions when leaving home, possession of a gun, burglar alarm, or insurance, and frequency of going out. Some of the 2000 surveys were administered nationally and some were restricted to a main city within a given country. The ICVS National Survey Data cover the following countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Catalonia, Denmark, England and Wales, Finland, France, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. The ICVS City Survey Data cover the following countries: Albania, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lesotho, Lithuania, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, Ukraine, and Zambia.