WS - E - Conducting Community Surveys

What is the local-level Crime Victimization Survey? The CVS is a generic telephone survey questionnaire covering what police engaged in community policing often seek to learn from the community: What is the extent of residents’ exposure to crime and perceptions of crime? What are local perceptions of community disorder and quality of life? What are local priorities for addressing neighborhood conditions of disorder? How fearful are residents of crime? What self-protective steps have been taken by citizens? What is the extent and nature of police contact with residents? What are citizens' perceptions of police activities? How satisfied are citizens with police performance? What are public attitudes toward and knowledge of community policing? The community policing questions supplement the core victimization questions taken from the NCVS. The core victimization questions from NCVS examine in great detail the nature of victimization experiences within a household & identifying victim characteristics, victim behaviors, offense characteristics, reporting behavior including an explanation of why the incident may have been unreported, offender characteristics, use of weapons, and a host of other information about the victimization experience. The reader should be cautioned that the CVS is a basic or generic community survey instrument. Survey research is not typically “one size fits all.” Later in this guide, we’ll discuss how to revise the basic survey to fit the specific needs of your jurisdiction. There are important benefits to conducting a standardized survey, however. The principal benefit is that many of the questions related to scientific methodology have been addressed by experts. You can have greater confidence that the results of the survey are valid. A second reason is that it is possible to make comparisons with other jurisdictions which have conducted similar surveys. For many situations such as addressing crime and disorder problems, such comparisons may not be helpful. However, to interpret the measures of citizen satisfaction with your department resulting from this survey, it may be useful to compare your agency to others. How have surveys been used by police? Police have long been interested in citizens’ views of police. To evaluate police programs, academic researchers have used surveys of citizens & in person, by telephone or by mail, with different response rates and costs. But police agencies have only intermittently surveyed citizens, with some increase in these surveys beginning in the 1980s. During the 1980s police began to conduct their own & albeit often informal & surveys. Many of these surveys were door-to-door surveys designed to document the extent and nature of fear of crime. Among others, fear Conducting Community Surveys 3