International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS)

"The International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) was initiated in 1987 by a group of European criminologists with expertise in national crime surveys (Van Dijk, Mayhew, Killias, 1990). The survey was set up to produce estimates of victimisation that can be used for international comparison. The survey has evolved into the world’s premier program of standardised surveys looking at householders’ experience of common crime in different countries. There have so far been five main rounds of the ICVS. After the first round in 1989 the surveys were repeated in 1992, 1996, and 2000 and 2004/2005. By the end of 2005 over 140 surveys had been done in over 78 different countries (in 37 countries nationwide). Over 320,000 citizens have been interviewed in the course of the ICVS so far. The present database covers 325454 individual respondents."