DOI: 10.3886/icpsr39273
title: National Crime Victimization Survey, Concatenated File, Legacy Version, [United States], 1992-2024
title: Archival Version

description: <strong>In 2024, the NCVS instrument was redesigned. The data in this study were collected from the legacy instrument. Please see the Collection Notes below for more details.</strong>
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), previously called the National Crime Survey (NCS), has been collecting data on personal and household victimization through an ongoing survey of a nationally-representative sample of residential addresses since 1973. The NCVS was designed with four primary objectives: (1) to develop detailed information about the victims and consequences of crime, (2) to estimate the number and types of crimes not reported to the police, (3) to provide uniform measures of selected types of crimes, and (4) to permit comparisons over time and types of areas. Beginning in 1992, the survey categorizes crimes as "personal" or "property." Personal crimes include rape and sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and purse-snatching/pocket-picking, while property crimes include burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and vandalism. Each respondent is asked a series of screen questions designed to determine whether she or he was victimized during the six-month period preceding the first day of the month of the interview. A "household respondent" is also asked to report on crimes against the household as a whole (e.g., burglary, motor vehicle theft). The data include type of crime, month, time, and location of the crime, relationship between victim and offender, characteristics of the offender, self-protective actions taken by the victim during the incident and results of those actions, consequences of the victimization, type of property lost, whether the crime was reported to police and reasons for reporting or not reporting, and offender use of weapons, drugs, and alcohol. Basic demographic information such as age, race, gender, and income is also collected, to enable analysis of crime by various subpopulations.
This dataset represents the concatenated version of the NCVS on a collection year basis for 1992-2024. A collection year contains records from interviews conducted in the 12 months of the given year. Under the collection year format, victimizations are counted in the year the interview is conducted, regardless of the year when the crime incident occurred.For additional information on the dataset, please see the documentation for the data from the most current year of the NCVS, ICPSR Study 39272.
description: The data files include several weight variables used to calculate national estimates of: households, persons, victimizations, and incidents. The user guide describes how to use the weights.
description: Stratified multistage cluster sample.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Concatenated Household File
DS2: Concatenated Person File
DS3: Concatenated Incident File
description: All persons in the United States aged 12 or older. Smallest Geographic Unit: region
description: computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI); face-to-face interviewThe data were collected by the United States Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau.The 2024 concatenated files were created from the Household, Person, and Incident-Level collection year files.Data collection for the NCVS Instrument Redesign started in January 2024. In coordination with the U.S. Census Bureau, BJS implemented a split-sample design to concurrently administer the new (or redesigned) and legacy NCVS instruments in 2024. As a result, the 1992-2024 archived data at ICPSR/NACJD include the legacy NCVS data collection (National Crime Victimization Survey, Concatenated File, Legacy Version, [United States], 1992-2024, ICPSR 39273) as well as the redesign NCVS data collection (forthcoming). See the NCVS Instrument Redesign webpage on the BJS website for more information (NCVS Instrument Redesign | Bureau of Justice Statistics).Starting in January 2022, BJS reverted back to administering the sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) questions to all respondents (not proxy respondents) age 16 or older, regardless of whether they completed a Crime Incident Report (CIR). For more information on the history and universe of NCVS respondents administered the SOGI questions, see the 2024 Legacy NCVS User's Guide (ICPSR 39272).The 2020 NCVS weights include an additional adjustment to address the impact of modified field operations due to COVID-19. For more information on the weighting adjustments applied in 2020, see the Source and Accuracy Statement for the 2020 National Crime Victimization Survey in the 2020 NCVS Codebook (ICPSR 38090).In 2016, the NCVS sample was redesigned. Working with the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Justice Statistics devised a methodology for creating the revised 2016 NCVS data file to allow for comparisons between the 2016 data and prior (and future) data years. This study includes revised data from a previously published study (ICPSR 36834). Please see the 2016 revised codebook (ICPSR 37296) for more information on those changes.Starting in 2012 series crimes are included with up to 10 occurrences.