Section 2  Crime Victimization Survey

1 Introduction

  Accurately grasping the situation with crime occurrences is essential as a premise for considering effective public safety measures in criminal policy, with there being two main methods of doing so, namely [1] totaling the number of cases reported to public institutions such as the police, etc. and [2] conducting general public surveys using questionnaires, etc. to investigate the actual conditions and number of crime occurrences that will include any cases not actually reported to the police, etc. (dark figure survey). Information collected in the dark figure survey of [2] can only be successively compared with the reported number of [1] when conducted regularly. [1] and [2] have a close relation in understanding crime trends, and use of the data to supplement each other can result in effective criminal policy.
  The importance of dark figure surveys has been recognized in major developed countries in Europe and the U.S. for some time now. Nationwide dark figure surveys have been conducted almost every year in the U.S. and the U.K. for about 30 years and their results have been reflected in criminal policy. In addition, an International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS) started in 1989 to be used for making international comparisons of crime victims and is conducted almost every four years worldwide. As of today over 300,000 persons in 78 countries/regions have participated in the survey using a standard questionnaire under the guidance, etc. of United Nation organizations.
  In Japan, the Research and Training Institute of the Ministry of Justice conducted the first Crime Victimization Survey (dark figure survey) in 2000 when participating in the fourth International Crime Victimization Survey, and has participated in the survey every four years now. After the second survey in 2004, the third survey was conducted in January through March, 2008. In the survey 6,000 male/female subjects (the same number for males and females) aged 16 or older were selected nationwide through two-stage stratified random sampling and were then interviewed by an interviewer using a questionnaire and partly given a questionnaire that they self-answered (for the questionnaire regarding sexual offenses, survey subjects fill in the questionnaire themselves, seal it, and submit it to enumerators). As part of realizing the Basic Plan for Crime Victims it differs from the second survey in that the number of subjects was doubled to enable more detailed investigation of the conditions of crime victims and a survey on sexual offense cases was conducted for all subjects regardless of sex using a self-answering questionnaire.