Victimisation and fear of crime, survey on living conditions

Exposed to violence: we ask the respondents whether they during the last 12 months have been exposed to violence with or without visible marks or injury. Accordingly, we ask how many times the respondent have been exposed to these kinds of incidents during the last 12 months.

Exposed to threats of violence: we ask respondents whether they during the last 12 months have been exposed to threats to the extent that they were scared. The question is asked as an extension of the questions about exposure to violence and is therefore referred to as "threat of violence". Thereafter we ask how many times this has occurred during this period.

Incidents of violence and threats: for up to six incidents of violence and threats in total, we ask about health consequences, police report, type of violence and threat, as well as time, place and several other characteristics of the incidents and perpetrators.

Exposed to theft or criminal damage: we ask the respondents whether they during the last 12 months have been exposed to theft or criminal damage, thereafter how many times this has occurred during this period.

Incidents of thefts or criminal damage: for up to five incidents of theft and damage in total, we ask about the value in Norwgian kroner (NOK) of the harm, police report, type of theft and criminal damage, as well as time, place and several other characteristics of the incidents.

Fear of violence or threats: the respondents are asked whether they recently have feared exposure to violence or threats of violence when walking alone in their neighbourhood.

Fear of thefts or criminal damage: we ask the respondents whether they recently have been anxious of being exposed to violence or threats when walking alone in their neighbourhood.

Definitions in tables of incidents

Relation to the offender: for all incidents of violence and threats, we ask: "Was this act carried out by an unknown person or by someone you knew?" Which of the following answer options fits best?". From and including 2023, "Boy-/girlfriend, partner, cohabitant (former incl.)" was added as one new answer option, and "Family member or relative" was simultaneously changed from two to one option. In the statistics, from and including the year 2023, these are grouped together in a new category "Family, cohabitant or partner (former incl.)". The answer options and categories in the statistics are otherwise almost identical for all years. However, after it became possible in 2023 to answer "Boy-/girlfriend, partner, cohabitant (former incl.)" it is assumed that somewhat fewer than before will choose the option "Neighbour, friend, colleague".

Descriptions of the offenders age, sex and influence of drugs or alcohol: for all incidents of violence and threats, we ask about characteristics of the perpetrator If there were several perpetrators, the characteristics of "the most active" are requested. If age is difficult to state, it is possible to estimate age within the age groups used in the statistics.

Scene of crime: for all incidents of violence and threats, the question "Where did this happen?" is asked, with a total of nine answer options. In the statistics, three of these options are grouped together "In own house or residential area", while three other options are grouped together in the category "In public area". "At work or place of study" is a grouping of two answer options where, among other things, it is specified to be "at your own workplace".

Value of the harm: for all incidents of theft and criminal damage, the question is asked: "What would you estimate the value of what was stolen/damaged? Estimate the value even if the loss was covered by insurance, and even if you got the stolen thing back." Up to and including 2018, amounts were given to the nearest 1,000 NOK. From and including 2023, the value can be given in a more precise amount of NOK.

Definition of background variables

Age: persons are grouped by age at the beginning of the year for the completion of the main part of the interview.

Sex: people are grouped by gender. The information is taken from the population register. Follows the standard of Classification of sex (KLASS2).

Area of residence: persons are grouped according to sparsely populated areas or densely populated areas of different size. Sparsely populated areas include clusters of houses with less than 200 inhabitants. Densely populated areas include areas with 200 inhabitants or more, and a distance between houses - as a main rule - not more than 50 meters. The statistic uses Classification of Residential areas (KLASS567) level 1 and 2 of the version Residential areas 2023.

Region: is a level between county and the entire country. The regions consist of a certain number of counties, and the statistics on victimisation and fear of crime use Classification of region (KLASS106), version Region 2002. The region Eastern Norway n.e.c. consist of Innlandet (former counties Hedmark and Oppland) and South Eastern Norway (the counties Østfold, Buskerud, Vestfold and Telemark). The region Western Norway consist of the counties Vestland (former Hordaland and Sogn og Fjordane) and Møre og Romsdal. Northern Norway consist of the counties Nordland, Troms and Finnmark.

Family cycle phase: persons are grouped mainly by age, marital status and whether the person has children. There is a distinction between singles and couples, where couples include both married and cohabitants. The concept single persons include persons not living in a relationship, and do not necessarily refer to persons living alone in the household. The groups with children consist of persons living with their own child(ren) (including stepchildren and adopted children) aged 0-19 years in the household.

Classification of Residential areas (KLASS567)

Classification of region (KLASS106)

Classification of families (KLASS17)

Classification of sex (KLASS2)

Victimisation and fear of crime, survey on living conditions
Social conditions, welfare and crime

Division for Income and social welfare statistics

National, regional and residential area.

Victimisation and fear of crime is collected and published every three-five year. The Survey of Living Conditions EU-SILC is carried out annually. From 2011 onwards the survey consists of a set of core questions and a theme section with rotating topics repeated in a cycle of three years. From 2012 onwards the theme Housing conditions and victimisation and fear of crime are collected in the same survey.

In 2011, the data collection of the national topics in the Survey on Living Conditions was merged with the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). EU-SILC is a European sample survey of income, social exclusion and living conditions that is coordinated through the EU's statistics agency Eurostat and anchored in the European Statistical System (ESS). Cross-sectional and panel files are sent to Eurostat annually. EU-SILC microdata is available to researchers and students through Eurostat. However, victimisation and fear of crime are not included in international reporting, and these data and statistics are therefore not transferred to, for example, Eurostat.

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing. Anonymised files are available for researchers through Sikt.

Purpose

The purpose of the Norwegian Survey of Living Conditions EU-SILC is to give insight into the main aspects of and differences in living conditions and follow their development over time. The Norwegian Survey of Living Conditions EU-SILC will over a 3-year period be able to cover the major aspects of living conditions in the Norwegian population.

Background

The first surveys of living conditions in Norway were conducted six times between 1973 and 1995. These surveys shed light on the general components of living conditions; economics, housing conditions, leisure, social contact, health, education, employment and working conditions.

In 1996 a coordinated system of surveys was introduced. The system consisted of annual surveys with a repeating panel survey (EU-SILC from 2003) and a set of national rotating topics repeated every three years. The rotating topics were working environment, housing, outdoor activities, victims of crime, health and social relations.

In 2011 the present system for survey-based statistics on living conditions was introduced. A key objective of the new system was better coordination with international requirements connected to EU-SILC. National themes were coordinated with the European EU-SILC. The new system covers the presented topics from previous living condition surveys, in addition to new themes to illuminate political participation, social networks and economic and social problems.

New European regulations on social statistics were introduced in 2021. A common framework were established for all the social statistics regulated by Eurostat (IESS - Integrated European Social Statistics). This affects the parts of the survey that is regulated. There were made some adjustments to the national survey at the same time, e.g. new weights and revisions of the national modules.

In these versions of surveys of living conditions victimisation and fear of crime, to a somewhat varied extent, has been a theme in the years 1983, 1987, 1991, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2023. Victimisation and fear of crime have been mapped together with Housing conditions in the latest surveys, but have previously also been combined with other rolling themes.

The main users are government ministries, directorates and research communities in the areas of working environment, health care, housing, leisure and local environment and living conditions in general. Data from the survey is also widely used by the media and the general public.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

In general, the concept of living conditions is very broad, and the statistics which are based on the surveys of living conditions are therefore related to many other statistics.

Victimisation and fear of crime have several connections with other statistics on crime and justice published by Statistics Norway, such as the statistics on Offences and victims reported to the police, Offences investigated and Penal sanctions.

Questions related to victimisation and fear of crime, with varied content and scope, are also included in the living conditions surveys on the working environment, among employed people aged 18-66. Exposure and injuries to violence are also mapped in living conditions surveys on health conditions up to and including 2012.

In addition to the regular living conditions surveys, Statistics Norway carries out, on assignment, individual surveys on living conditions among selected groups. Relevant examples are surveys among prison inmates (in 2014 and 2003) and immigrants(in 2016, 2005/2006, 1996 and 1983), where these groups' victimisation and fear of crime have been mapped to a certain extent. In addition, Statistics Norway, on assignment from 2020, has carried out annual surveys on quality of life. In this surveys some negative incidents are mapped, including exposure to violence and threats (Barstad 2022).

The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

The section on victimisation and fear of crime is national. Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples.

The population is residents aged 16 years and over not living in institutions.

Data sources are interview data from representative sample surveys and various associated registries.

The gross sample for the Survey on Living Conditions, EU-SILC comprises approximately 11,500 individuals (5,000 in 1983-2011). The sample is drawn according to the procedures for random selection.

Data collection

Data collection is done by telephone (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview CATI). Data collection for the Survey of Living Conditions EU-SILC mainly occurs from January to June in the year of interview (before 2012, in the latter half of the year).

The interview takes place using a computer-based questionnaire. The questionnaire includes various controls to prevent incorrect answers or registration errors during the interview. In some cases, the interviewer receives warnings for the registered response. In other cases, there is a limit on values that cannot be exceeded. Moreover, it verifies that only valid codes are recorded.

The sample consists of people. The analysis unit is primarily a person, but can in some cases be a household. Using the household as the unit of analysis requires the use of household weights.

Information on income, education and housing are linked from administrative registers.

Editing

Obvious errors in the value of harm, in data on incidents of thefts and criminal damages, are edited. In some cases, unspecified answers are not included in the calculations. Therefore, the number of persons or incidents maybe not be the same in all tables for the same year.

Estimation

The gross sample is drawn so that it reflects the population, but because non-response is unequal across groups, the net sample is not representative. This bias varies across characteristics and variables. To adjust for bias in the net sample compared to the population, we use weights. The weights let answers from individuals with underrepresented characteristics count more, while answers from individuals with characteristics that are overrepresented count less. The weight thus adjusts for bias compared to the population the statistics are supposed to cover. The figures in the Statbank on persons victimised are, from 2023, calibrated against register information on sex, age, immigration background, income, education, county and family size. The figures for 2018 and earlier years are calibrated against register information on sex, age, education and family size.

The figures are published as percentages of population in the age of 16 years and older and percentages of incidents, with total numbers of persons and incidents in each group.

Not relevant

Interviewers and everyone who works at Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality. Statistics Norway has its own data protection officer.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures where there is a risk of identifying individual data about persons or households. More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the Confidentiality section.

The content of the surveys with the theme victimisation has been nearly identical in 1991 and all surveys from 1997 and after, with some additional questions about the offenders from 2007. The number of questions varies in other surveys, but since 1983 only minor changes have been done in the wording of the used question and answer options about victimisation. Which questions that are posed in the various years appears in the tables in the Statbank. Based on this, the figures in the statistics on victimisation and fear of crime are comparable over time.

Over a longer period, however, the population's perception and reporting of a type of crime can change. For example, what the population perceives and report as violence and threats at one point in time may include other events than what the population perceives and states as violence and threats at another point in time. In other words, this statistics measure both similar and different types of incidents, and similarity and dissimilarity in perception and reporting of incidents, by different groups in the populations over time. This can have an impact on the comparability of the statistics over time, place and people's characteristics.

More general changes in the Survey of living conditions may also have an impact on the comparability of the statistics over time. For example, there have been changes in the population and methods for collecting data, as well as the weighting for non-response. For a more detailed description of such major changes in the living conditions surveys, especially in the years 1996, 2011 and 2021, see section on Sources of error and uncertainty and Other relevant documentation.

The statistics on value of the harm of theft and criminal damage, for all years, are grouped without rounding. The victim's rounding to nearest 1,000 NOK up to and including 2018 may have some significance for the comparison of figures before and after 2023. No calculations or other adjustments have been made to the NOK values, and analyses of longer time series should therefore assess the significance of, for example, changes in the Consumer price index.

Non-response errors

Not all persons in the gross sample participates in the survey. The persons who does not participate represent a non-response group in the sample. Because non-response differs between groups, the net sample will not be fully representative for the Norwegian population. This bias will vary for different groups and variables in question.

To adjust for some of the biases in the net sample, figures in the tables are weighted. The following variables are included in the weighting for non-response: Sex, age, education level, income, family size, immigrant background and county (fylke). Previously published figures on victimisation and fear of crime are not updated with new weights.

Sampling errors

The uncertainty of findings based on a sample from the population is often called sampling variance. The standard deviation is a measure of this uncertainty. The size of the standard deviation depends, among other factors, on the number of observations in the sample, and on the distribution of the current variable in the whole population.

Statistic Norway has not made exact calculations to compute standard deviation for the findings. However, in a table in the documentation report, chapter on 'utvalgsusikkerhet' (see link under Relevant documentation), the approximate size of standard deviation is given for observed percentages.

To illustrate the uncertainty associated with a percentage, we can use an interval to give the level of the true value of an estimated quantity (the value obtained if making observation on the whole population instead of observation based on a part of the population). Such intervals are called confidence intervals if constructed in a special way. In this connection one can use the following method: let M be the estimated quantity, and S the estimate of standard deviation of M. The confidence interval will be an interval with limits (M-1,96*S) and (M+1,96*S). This method will give, with approximately 95 per cent probability, an interval containing the true value.

A revision is a planned change to figures that have been published, for example when publishing final figures where preliminary figures have previously been published. See also Principles for revisions in Statistics Norway.

For the statistics on victimisation and fear of crime, no revisions have been made, and there are no plans for future revisions of the figures published in the Statbank.