DOI: 10.3886/icpsr09571
title: United Nations World Crime Surveys: First Survey, 1970-1975 and Second Survey, 1975-1980
title: Archival Version

description: The United Nations began its World Crime Surveys in 1978. 
 The first survey collected statistics on a small range of offenses and 
 on the criminal justice process for the years 1970-1975. The second 
 survey collected data on a wide range of offenses, offenders, and 
 criminal justice process data for the years 1975-1980. Several factors 
 make these two collections difficult to use in combination. Some 25 
 percent of those countries responding to the first survey did not 
 respond to the second and, similarly, some 30 percent of those 
 responding to the second survey did not respond to the first. In 
 addition, many questions asked in the second survey were not asked in 
 the first survey. This data collection represents the efforts of the 
 investigators to combine, revise, and recheck the data of the first two 
 surveys. The data are divided into two parts. Part 1 comprises all data 
 on offenses and on some criminal justice personnel. Crime data are 
 entered for 1970 through 1980. In most cases 1975 is entered twice, 
 since both surveys collected data for this year. Part 2 includes data 
 on offenders, prosecutions, convictions, and prisons. Data are entered 
for 1970 through 1980, for every even year.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Data on Offenders and Criminal Justice Personnel
DS2: Data on Offenders, Prosecutions, Convictions, and Prisons
description: Member countries of the United Nations.
description: The documentation for Part 1 indicates a total of 91 
 cases (countries). The data, however, indicate a total of 101 cases. 
 (countries). These ten additional countries are Bulgaria, Cayman 
 Islands, Gibraltar, Honduras, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Nigeria, Saudi 
 Arabia, Sudan, and Vanuatu. Similarly, the documentation for Part 2 
 indicates a total of 91 cases (countries), but there are actually 96. 
 The five additional countries are Bulgaria, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, 
 Honduras, and Vanuatu. The original documentation further indicates 30 
 records per case. Two countries in Part 1, however, fall short of 30 
 records per case: Algeria and Mauritius. Algeria is missing one record 
 and Mauritius is missing 2 records. For both parts, where substantial 
 discrepancies occurred between the validation data collected through 
 the questionnaire, the questionnaire data were entered, unless they 
 appeared to deviate substantially from the overall pattern of the data. 
 This occurred in only a few instances. The following crime categories 
 could not be made comparable between the first and second surveys: 
 rape, drugs, judges, and totals. The term "rape" was not used in the 
 first survey. Instead, the phrase "sex offenses" was used. In the 
 first survey, the phrase "substance abuse" was used, and the 
 responses broken down into "drugs" and "alcohol." The data recorded 
 for the first survey are for "substance abuse" with alcohol excluded. 
 The nearest equivalent to substance abuse in the second survey was the 
 category "drug crimes." However, the first survey also requested data 
 on "illegal traffic in drugs." This was not requested in the second 
 survey, although the variables are included in this data set, and some 
 data were entered into them from the validation questionnaires. The 
 first survey did not define "judges." Consequently, no distinction 
 was made between professional and lay judges. The data of the second 
 survey report only professional judges. Total crimes was a separate 
 category in both surveys. It does not necessarily equal the sum of the 
 other crime categories collected in the survey. In some developing 
 countries, for example, often the gross total of all crimes was the 
only information available.