International Crime Victim Surveys (ICVS)

The International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) was initiated in 1987 by a group of European criminologists with expertise in national crime surveys. The survey was set up to produce estimates of victimisation that can be used for international comparison. 

The International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS) is the most far-reaching programme of standardised sample surveys to look at householders' experience with crime, policing, crime prevention and feelings of unsafety in a large number of countries and includes information on:

• victim of theft of-from vehicles, vandalism, robbery, pickpocketing, thefts
• sexual harassement or violence, assault
• frequency of victimisation, reasons not to report to the police, familiarity of offender in case of sexual, physical violence
• injuries, fear of crime in local area, use of help agencies for victims
• satisfaction with police behaviour, preferred legal sanctions, punishment, length of detention
• safety precautions when leaving home, possession of gun, burgular alarm, insurance, frequency of going out.

 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).