International Crime Victims Surveys - ICVS - 1989, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2005

Over a time span of fifteen years more than 300,000 people were interviewed about their experiences with victimisation and related subjects in 78 different countries. The ICVS is the most comprehensive instrument developed yet to monitor and study volume crimes, perception of crime and attitudes towards the criminal justice system in a comparative, international perspective. The data are from surveys amongst the general public and therefore not influenced by political or ideological agendas of governments of individual countries.

Standardisation of questionnaires used and other aspects of data collection assure that data can, within confidence margins, be reliably compared across countries. The ICVS-2 (2010) is the responsibility of the Dutch WODC (Ministry of Justice) and the British Home Office. The 2010 data (a pilot held in 6 countries) will probably become available in 2012.