Abstract
This paper outlines the methodology developed for Italy's national survey of sexual vio-lence and crime and reviews the results of an innovative approach to measuring violence and crime in Italy. This survey is part of the Household Multipurpose Survey System which was carried out in 1997 and will be repeated at regular intervals every five years. This is the first attempt for the Multipurpose Survey Unit to use the telephone interview. We felt that the telephone would be the appropriate tool to investigate sensitive issues such as sexual crimes or security systems against theft. As work on the design of the survey proceeded, it became clear that the success of the project would depend on the ability to understand the difficulties of the interviewees, especially women talking about their experiences of violence. The solutions found during an extensive consultation process in the design and development phases of the project produced unique methodological challenges that, in many respects, changed the traditional way of conducting telephone surveys. The survey has allowed us to gather reliable estimates of the incidence, nature and consequences of crime victimization. It is designed to complement police statistics and to capture those incidents that are never reported to the police. A representative sample survey can help us to understand crime characteristics as well as which groups in the population are at greatest risk of violence. The survey was done on the basis of a recommendation of the International Conference of Pechino in 1995 to collect data on crime and safety.
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