The objectives of this survey of victims of crime were: 1. measurement of the extent and distribution of selected crimes, 2. provision of information concerning the impact of selected crimes, 3. measurement of the risk of criminal investigation, and 4. provision of indicators on the functioning of the criminal justice system.
The crimes to be measured in the survey were: break and enter, theft, personal property and household property, motor vehicle theft, vandalism, robbery, assault and sexual assault. This information would be used in the planning and evaluation of crime prevention programs.
Statistics Canada. Special Surveys Division
Canada: St. John's, Halifax-Dartmouth, Montreal Island, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver
Two-stage probability sample: The first stage being the selection of a sample of households using random digit dialing (RDD); the second stage being the selection of one individual 16 years of age or older from each selected household. Respondents were asked to report the details of incidents of any of the seven types of crime which occurred to them or their household during calendar year 1981. Excluded from the sample are households that did not have telephone service, and residents of institutions such as senior citizen homes, hospitals, university dormitories, or residents in public accommodation such as hotels and motels.
Telephone interviews
1 data files (74,463 logical records) & accompanying documentation
The survey was conducted by Statistics Canada, with resulting data to be analyzed and published by the Department of the Solicitor General. The survey addressed itself only to certain municipalities within each CMA, usually the largest city. The survey was designed to provide estimates of incidents, persons, and households. Incident estimates are the numbers of the various crimes for example 5,500 break and enters. Person estimates are those used to describe characteristics of the population sampled, for example, 20,000 persoms were victims of assault. Household estimates indicate the number or proportion of households with a characteristic, for example 20,000 apartments were broken into
The file has several weighting factors that should be used depending on the type of characteristic being estimated. These are explained in detail in the methodology report. In addition, the file has been structured to permit those various analyses. The file contains records for each person in the sample whether they were a victim or non-victim as well as multiple records for persons who were victims more than once during the reference period. For example, a person who was a non-victim of the crimes included has one record on the file containing information collected in the screening form. A person who was the victim of only one incident will also have one record which would contain screening form information and details about the incident. A person who was the victim of 6 incidents during the reference period has 6 records. Each record contains the screening form information and details about a distinct incident.
Printed codebook available in UT/DLS, Robarts Library, room 5038F
Canada. Department of the Solicitor General
Statistics Canada Report on Canadian victimization survey methodological pretests. [Ottawa, ON]: Statistics Canada, unpublished report
Statistics Canada. Special Surveys Division Crime survey, 7 (seven) cities, 1982: urban crime survey [computer file]. Ottawa, Ont.: Statistics Canada. Special Surveys Division [producer and distributor] Jan. 1985
Data through SDA interface is restricted for use by faculty, students, and staff of University of Toronto and subscribing institutions, for academic research and teaching purposes only.