VICTIM SURVEYS CONDUCTED BY NATIONAL STATISTICAL OFFICES Australian Survey Experience Submitted by Australian Bureau of Statistics *

1. National crime and safety information is used to inform government policies and objectives in two broad areas-community safety and the effective and efficient utilisation of public expenditures. Crime and justice objectives are closely linked with the general well-being of the community and programs are put in place to reduce the risks and impacts of victimisation and the effective apprehension and rehabilitation of offenders. 2. In this paper four surveys designed to meet these needs are discussed: · the ABS National Crime and Safety Survey (NCSS) which has been conducted in its current form since 1993 * Paper prepared by Chris Libreri. Working paper no.13 2 · the ABS Personal Safety Survey (PSS) to be conducted in 2005. The PSS is based on the 1996 Women's Safety Survey (WSS) but extended to include a male component for the 2005 collection · the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) in 2000 · the ABS General Social Survey (GSS) which was conducted in 2002. 3. Assault is measured in all of these surveys and analysis has shown a significant difference in results for this measure. This difference has been examined in detail in the ABS information paper: Measuring Crime Victimisation, Australia: The Impact of Different Collection Methodologies (ABS 4522.0.55.001) and this paper draws information and analysis from that document