Crime victimisation in Australia : key results of the 2004 International Crime Victimisation Survey

Holly Johnson
ISBN 0 642 53881 6 ; ISSN 1326-6004
Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology: 2005
(Research and public policy series, no. 64)

1. Background to the International Crime Victimisation Survey

Why the need for victimisation surveys?

Crime victimisation surveys have emerged over the past few decades as an important research tool to help provide a picture of crime that is independent of police statistics. They are conducted by randomly selecting a sample of the population to interview about their experiences of crime and perceptions of crime and the criminal justice system. Most Western industrialised countries and many developing countries have come to rely on victimisation surveys to provide estimates of:

• rates of victimisation;
• variations in rates of victimisation among segments of the population;
• the percentage of crimes reported to police;
• reasons for not reporting;
• fear of crime and perceptions of safety;
• public perceptions of the police; and
• efforts undertaken by individuals to protect themselves from crime.

These data have many practical uses, including monitoring change in victimisation rates over time, understanding risk, understanding victims' reporting decisions, understanding and addressing fear of crime, and developing crime prevention programs based on this knowledge. Victimisation survey data provide an important complement to official statistical data produced by police and other criminal justice agencies. The Australian Bureau of Statistics conducts a crime victimisation survey, the Crime and Safety Survey, on a regular basis, most recently in 2002 (ABS 2003). The ICVS is broader in scope and each cycle can be adapted to focus on specific policy issues that have been identified by stakeholders.

The Australian component of the ICVS

The International Crime Victimisation Survey (ICVS) is an international project involving approximately 60 countries worldwide. It is coordinated through the United National Office on Drugs and Crime with national coordinators overseeing the project in each participating country. Five cycles of the ICVS have been conducted: 1989, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 (Carcach & Makkai 2003). Australia participated in all but the 1996 cycle. Interviews are typically conducted by telephone in developed countries and face-to-face in developing countries (van Kesteren et al 2000; Alvazzi del Frate 1998). The ICVS is designed to provide an internationally comparable set of estimates, and enables participating countries to expand on questions or sample size to suit their policy needs.

As in previous cycles, the Australian component of the 2004 ICVS is managed by the Australian Institute of Criminology. Funding for the project was provided in two parts: the Australian Government Attorney-General's Department provided funding for a random national sample of 6000 respondents, and the Australian Government Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs funded a booster sample of 1000 migrants from Vietnam and the Middle East. The sample of 7000 is considerably larger than past samples, and typical samples in other countries, which have been in the order of 2000 (an exception was the 2000 ICVS in Australia which included an additional sample of 1000 older persons).

The enhanced sample in the 2004 ICVS is designed to enable more detailed analysis than has been possible in the past and to address issues of importance to the Australian Government. The in-scope population for the 2004 ICVS was all adults 16 years of age and older who were residents of private households in Australia. Data were collected by Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). Table 1 presents a profile of the 2004 ICVS sample, unweighted and after adjustments were made so that it accurately represents the age, gender and place of birth of the Australian population according to the 2001 Census of Population and Housing (see Appendix for a full explanation of sample selection and weighting procedures). The over sampling of migrants from Vietnam and the Middle East meant that these groups were over-represented in the unweighted sample. After weighting, approximately three quarters of the sample were born in Australia and one quarter were born overseas. The largest portion of overseas-born respondents had immigrated from Europe or Asia. A total of 15 per cent spoke a language other than English at home and two per cent identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

This report provides national-level data on the key issues addressed in the ICVS, including:

1. rates of victimisation;
2. perceptions of crime and safety;
3. reporting crimes to the police;
4. citizen engagement in crime prevention; and
5. policy implications of these findings.