Callie Marie Rennison, Ph.D., Michael R. Rand, Bureau of Justice Statistics

August 24, 2003    NCJ 199994

Presents national levels and rates of personal and property victimization for the year 2002. Rates and levels are provided for personal and property victimization by victim characteristics, type of crime, victim-offender relationship, use of weapons, and reporting to police. A special section is devoted to trends in victimization from 1993 to 2002. Estimates are from data collected using the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), an ongoing survey of households that interviews about 76,000 persons in 42,000 households twice annually. Violent crimes included in the report are rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault (from the NCVS), and homicide (from the FBI's UCR program). Property crimes examined are burglary, motor vehicle theft, and property theft.

Highlights:

• Overall violent victimization and property crime rates in 2002 are the lowest recorded since the inception of the NCVS in 1973.
• The rate of violent crime dropped 21% from the period 1999-2000 to the period 2001-02.
• Reporting to the police increased from 43% of all violent crimes in 1993 to 49% in 2002; reporting of property crimes increased from 34% to 40%.

Part of the Criminal Victimization Series

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