A Cross-National Comparison of Victims of Crime: Victim Surveys of Twelve Countries 1

Comparison of national crime surveys must be made very cautiously because of differences in sampling, methodology and content, in this report methodological differences between the United States’ National Crime Survey and victimization surveys of other countries are examined and survey estimates of victimization are adjusted. It is found that U.S. rates of assault/threat, robbery, and burglary are not extraordinarily higher than those of other eleven other countries or regions. However. U.S. levels of gun use are much higher and U.S. levels of both sun and non-gun lethal violence (using Killias. 1990) far exceed those of other industrialized societies.