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1 Patrick A. Langan & Christopher A. Innes, The Risk of Violent Crime 1 (1985)

handle is hein.death/risvc0001 and id is 1 raw text is: U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report U The Risk of Violent Crime By Patrick A. Langan, Ph.D. BJS Statistician and Christopher A. Innes, Ph.D.* What percentage of the U.S. population is victimized by violent crime each year? This question cannot be answer- ed by traditional crime victimization rates. To find the answer, a new measure-the Crime Risk Index-was developed for this report. Derived from an analysis of 5 years of data from the National Crime Survey (1978- 82), the Crime Risk Index shows that about 3% of Americans each year are victims of violent crime. While this percentage might seem small to some, in the United States this represents about 6 million victims of violent crime. Moreover, the 3% figure is a con- servative estimate because it includes the crimes of rape, robbery, and assault but not murder, manslaughter by drunk drivers, kidnapping, child abuse, or other violent crimes not measured in the National Crime Survey. Finally, the 3% estimate applies only to victimizations that took place in a single year. An estimate for a lifetime would be much higher. For example, a separate Bureau of Justice Statistics study (reported in the box on page 2) of homicide data compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics shows that an American has about a 1 in 10,000 chance of being murdered in a single year but a 1 in 133 chance in an entire lifetime. *Former Research Fellow, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. May 1985 With this report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics introduces a new statistical indicator that measures the risk of becoming the victim of a violent crime. Compared with crime victimization rates-which show how many victimizations oc- curred per 1000 members of the population-the new Crime Risk Index shows the percentage of the U.S. population and of various sub- groups that were victimized by violent crime in a given year. The new indicator facilitates comparisons with other statistical indicators that measure the risk of Other findings on violent crime victimizations (1982) include the following: * Most violent crime victims were victims of assault (about 2.5% of the population). * A higher proportion of males (4%) were victimized than females (2%). e A higher proportion of blacks (4%) were victimized than whites (3%). e Persons 16 to 24 years old were more likely to be victimized than those of other age groups. e About the same proportions of white and black males age 16 to 24 were victimized. * There is a direct relationship between family income and victimization for both whites and blacks: the lower the income, the greater the victimization. a major life event. For example, the risk of becoming the victim of a violent crime may be compared with the risk of being in an auto- mobile accident or contracting a particular disease or experiencing a natural disaster. Such compari- sons form the basis for a broader understanding of the magnitude of the serious crime problem we face today. BJS is pleased to do its part toward making that under- standing possible. Steven R. Schlesinger Director 9 The proportion of the population victimized by violent crime was fairly constant between 1978 and 1982. WHY THE CRIME RISK INDEX WAS DEVELOPED To keep the public and policymakers informed on the Nation's crime pro- blem, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) sponsors an ongoing nationwide survey (National Crime Survey) of the American people to measure personal and household victimization. Through this survey interviews are conducted at 6-month intervals with all occupants age 12 and older of about 60,000 households (approximately 128,000 persons). Each year BJS publishes the results of the National Crime Survey in two forms. One is the victimization rate, which shows the number of criminal victimizations for various major offenses per 1,000 members of the p

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