In New York City, learning more about victims’ needs and experiences is an essential step toward achieving justice.
New Yorkers have access to mountains of statistics, updated weekly, about crimes committed in New York City and what happens to the people accused of committing them. Policymakers and the general public, however, lack the data necessary to track what happens to crime victims. It’s time that changed.
An important national statistic mostly unknown outside criminal justice circles is that more than half of all crimes are not reported to the police. This critical finding has been consistent since 1973, when the federal government first launched the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). This household survey asks whether individuals were victims of crime and if so, whether they reported the crime to the police. It also asks what support victims received following their victimization, whether they accessed victim services and, for those who did not report the crime, why they chose not to.
But the NCVS is for the nation as a whole; there’s no corresponding way to track what happens to crime victims in the nation’s largest city. There should be.
We encourage the next mayoral administration to invest in an annual victimization survey that builds upon the NCVS platform, but with additional statistical power and enhanced questions. This robust survey would allow for a granular understanding of the reasons city residents do not report crimes and the steps they take, if any, to seek assistance following the crime. It would also shed light on variations across neighborhoods and within different demographic groups. In light of the Trump administration’s enforcement and deportation policies, this would be particularly important to document shifts in trust in the police in neighborhoods with a high percentage of immigrants. The overarching policy goal of this initiative would be to help all victims of crime across the city, including victims who did not file a complaint, rebuild their lives.
New York City: A decline in victimization and a decline in reporting
The potential of such a local study is illustrated by a recent analysis of NCVS data from New York City. Research published earlier this year by Dr. Min Xie, a criminology professor at the University of Maryland, documents changes over the years in crimes reported by victims in New York City, the reasons given for not reporting and the use of victim services.
Xie’s study analyzed data from 1996 to 2022. Consistent with crime trends based on police reports, she found that both violent and property crime victimization decreased significantly over this time period. Violent crimes declined from 38 to 15 per 1,000 residents, while property crimes declined from 161 to 100 per 1,000. Her analysis also supports the finding from police statistics that New York City remains one of the safest cities in the country.
More importantly, however, Xie found that over time, fewer victims were choosing to report the crimes committed against them to the police. In the late 1990s, 49% of violent crimes were reported to the police. By the early 2020s, this decreased to 35%. In the late 1990s, 31% of property crimes were reported to the police. This decreased to 21% by the early 2020s. Another cause for concern is that, in recent years, other large cities had higher reporting rates than New York City for both violent crimes (42% vs. 35%) and property crimes (29% vs. 21%).
New Yorkers should be concerned that fewer crimes are being brought to official attention. Reversing this trend requires a deeper understanding of the reasons victims do not report. Fortunately, the NCVS provides a good place to start because it asks why the crime was not reported. Was the crime dealt with another way? Was it not considered important enough to report? Was the crime covered by insurance? Did the victims fear retaliation if they were to report the crime? Victims can also respond that they thought the police couldn’t help or wouldn’t help.
Xie looked in particular at the number of victims who said that “police wouldn’t help.” Here again, the trends are concerning. In the late 1990s, 7% of New York City victims of violent crime gave this as their reason for not reporting. By the early 2020s, this number had risen to 16%. A similar trend has been reported in other large cities across the country, underscoring the national challenges of enhancing public trust in the police.
Xie’s study also highlights some good news. Among New Yorkers who experienced serious violence (including rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault), the use of victim services increased sharply over the study period. From 1997 to 2021, the percent of victims of these crimes who reported using services doubled, from 15% to 30%, rising to a level seven times higher than in other large cities.
This is a testament to the city’s rich array of nonprofit and government services for crime victims. For decades, nonprofit and government agencies in every borough have provided services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Safe Horizon, the nation’s largest victim services organization, has offered advocacy and assistance to victims of any crime. In 2016, Safe Horizon began expanding its services by placing two victim advocates in all 78 police precincts — one for victims of domestic violence, the other for victims of all other kinds of crime. These advocates offer assistance to every victim who reports the crime they were a victim of to the police. This is the largest partnership between a victim assistance agency and a police department in the country. The NCVS data indicate that as more services became readily available, more victims of crime accessed them.
Where we go from here
The advent of a new mayoral administration provides an opportunity to leverage these findings into policy reforms. At a minimum, the City should focus on improving victims’ trust in the police and building a stronger network of victim services. To track improvements in these metrics, the City should commit to its own annual victimization survey based on the NCVS. If conducted with a larger sample size, this would allow for important analyses by subpopulation (race/ethnicity, age) and neighborhoods (between and within boroughs). With this information, the City could target resources to those communities with the highest levels of non-reporting and lowest levels of confidence in the police.
We propose expanding the survey to ask more questions about crime victims’ experiences in order to shed light on how to best address victims’ physical, emotional and financial needs in the aftermath of crime. Research shows that victims of crime, compared to the general population, experience higher rates of depression, PTSD, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide and poor performance at school and at work.
An expanded survey could reveal what services and supports are most helpful, and what more public and non-profit institutions could do to support victims. Do our social services contribute to victims’ healing? Is our victim compensation system designed to maximize support? Answers to these questions could enhance both crisis response and long-term care. By asking victims where they turn for support, we would also value and strengthen the community and familial bonds that help victims heal.
This new survey would also document the complex relationships between crime victims and the individuals who caused them harm. This information could lead to the design of better interventions to keep victims safe and, wherever possible, support reparative work such as restitution or mediation. In addition, by expanding the frame from recent experiences to the ongoing impact of crime, we could address the long-term ripple effects that are not always observable in the immediate aftermath. And, by understanding patterns of repeat victimization, a phenomenon that occurs across crime categories, we could target services such as safety planning to interrupt cycles of ongoing harm. Ultimately, addressing the trauma many victims experience can keep victims engaged in community life.
Indeed, if the survey's framing shifted from system-centric to victim-centric, the results would lead to a deeper understanding of the multidimensional experience of crime victims. It would shift the emphasis from framing the victim as someone who does or doesn’t trigger a law enforcement response to a person who needs and deserves our support.
When it was first launched, the NCVS was revolutionary. It opened the door to an understanding of crime that went beyond police reports. Today, it stands as a tool that hasn’t met its potential. Under the next mayoral administration, New York City should lead the way and encourage a new wave of surveys that put victims’ needs and experiences front and center. Then, New Yorkers can embrace a policy goal to support all parties to a crime — those responsible for the crime and those who are harmed by it — as they both rebuild their lives. That is the highest aspiration of justice.