DOI: 10.3886/icpsr08608.v7
title: National Crime Surveys: National Sample, 1979-1987 [Revised Questionnaire]
title: Version 7

description: The purpose of the National Crime Surveys is to provide
data on the level of crime victimization in the United States and to
collect data on the characteristics of crime incidents and victims.
Information about each household and personal victimization was
recorded. The data include type of crime, description of the offender,
severity of crime, injuries or losses, and demographic characteristics
of household members.
description: Stratified multistage cluster sample.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: 1979 Full File
DS2: 1980 Full File
DS3: 1981 Full File
DS4: 1982 Full File
DS5: 1983 Full File
DS6: 1984 Full File
DS7: 1985 Full File
DS8: 1979 Incident File
DS9: 1980 Incident File
DS10: 1981 Incident File
DS11: 1982 Incident File
DS12: 1983 Incident File
DS13: 1984 Incident File
DS14: 1985 Incident File
DS16: 1979-1987 Incident-Level Concatenated File, All Victims, Bounded by Calendar Year
DS17: 1986 Full File
DS18: 1986 Incident File
DS19: 1987 Full File
DS20: 1987 Incident File
DS21: 1979 Person, All Victims for Up to Four Incidents, 10-Percent Sample, Non-Victims
DS22: 1980 Person, All Victims for Up to Four Incidents, 10-Percent Sample, Non-Victims
DS23: 1981 Person, All Victims for Up to Four Incidents, 10-Percent Sample, Non-Victims
DS24: 1982 Person, All Victims for Up to Four Incidents, 10-Percent Sample, Non-Victims
DS25: 1983 Person, All Victims, for Up to Four Incidents, 10-Percent Sample, Non-Victims
DS26: 1984 Person, All Victims, for Up to Four Incidents, 10-Percent Sample, Non-Victims
DS27: 1985 Person, All Victims, for Up to Four Incidents, 10-Percent Sample, Non-Victims
DS28: 1986 Person, All Victims, for Up to Four Incidents, 10-Percent Sample, Non-Victims
DS29: 1987 Person, All Victims, for Up to Four Incidents, 10-Percent Sample, Non-Victims
DS30: 1979-1987 Rape Subset, All Rape Cases, Incident-Level, Bounded by Calendar Year
description: All persons in the United States 12 years of age and
older.
description: The National Crime Surveys data are organized by
collection quarter, and six quarters comprise an annual file. For
example, for the 1979 file the four quarters of 1979 are included, as
well as the first two quarters of 1980.Parts 1-7 as well as Parts
17 and 19 are hierarchically structured, with four levels. The first
level, the household ID, has a logical record length of 54 characters
and contains 8 variables. The second level, the household, has a
logical record length of 204 with 89 variables. The third, or person,
level has a logical record length of 142 and 57 variables, and the
final level, the incident level, has a logical record length of 481
with 327 variables. The case counts per level are as follows:
household level: 178,324 to 217,814 per part, person level: 316,094 to
393,685 per part, incident level: 28,564 to 43,959 per part. The
person-level files contain data on all victims with a maximum of four
incidents each, and a 10-percent sample of non-victims. The unit of
analysis is the victim.The subset of rape cases includes attempts
and completed rapes.The codebooks and data collection instrument
for this collection are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document Format
(PDF) files. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems
Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as
the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the
Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.