Victims of Crime Survey 2011

The VOCS 2011 questionnaire was based on the questionnaires used in the International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS) and previous VOCSs conducted by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and Statistics SA. The
questions are covered in 27 sections and deal with the following topics:

Flap Demographic information (name, sex, age, population group, etc.)
Section 1 Household-specific characteristics (education, economic activities and household income sources
Section 2 Beliefs about crime
Section 3 Individual and community response to crime
Section 4 Victim support and other interventions
Section 5 Citizen interaction or community cohesion
Section 6 Perception of the police service
Section 7 Perception of the courts
Section 8 Perception of correctional services
Section 9 Corruption experienced by the respondent
Section 10 Experience of household crime (screening table)
Section 11 Theft of car experienced by a household member(s) in the previous 12 months
Section 12 Housebreaking or burglary when no one was at home in the previous 12 months
Section 13 Theft of livestock, poultry and other animals in the previous 12 months
Section 14 Theft of crops planted by the household in the previous 12 months
Section 15 Murder experienced by a household member(s) in the past 12 months
Section 16 Theft out of a motor vehicle experienced by a household member(s) in the previous 12 months
Section 17 Deliberate damaging/burning or destruction of dwelling experienced by a household member(s) in the previous 12 months
Section 18 Motor vehicle vandalism or deliberate damage of a motor vehicle experienced by a household member(s) in the previous 12 months
Section 19 Home robbery (including robbery often around or inside the household’s dwelling) experienced by a household member(s) in the previous 12 months

Sections 20–27 of this questionnaire required that an individual be randomly selected from the household to respond to questions classified as individual crimes. The methodology used was to select a person 16 years or older, whose birthday was the first to follow the survey date. These sections collected data on:

Section 20 Experiences of individual crimes (screening table) in the past 5 years and in the previous 12 months
Section 21 Theft of bicycle experienced in the previous 12 months
Section 22 Theft of motorbike or scooter experienced in the past 12 months
Section 23 Car hijacking (including attempted hijacking) experienced in the previous 12 months
Section 24 Robbery (including street robberies and other non-residential robberies, excluding car or truck hijackings, and home robberies) experienced in the previous 12 months
Section 25 Assault experienced in the previous 12 months
Section 26 Sexual offences (including rape) experienced in the previous 12 months
Section 27 Consumer fraud experienced by the individual experienced in the previous 12 months
All sections Comprehensive coverage of all aspects of domestic tourism and expenditure

The final data files correspond to sections of the questionnaireas follows:

Person: Data from Flap and Section 1 (excluding Section 1.6 and 1.7)
Household: Data from Section 1.7 and Section 10-19
Section 20-27: Data from Section 20-27

The VOCS 2011 is comparable to the previous VOCSs in that several questions have remained unchanged over time. Where possible, it was generally indicated in the report. However, it must be noted that the VOCS 2011 sample size was more than double of the previous surveys. The current survey can thus provide more accurate estimates than the previous surveys, for example at provincial level and for domain variables, such as gender and race. Caution should be exercised when running cross tabulation of different crimes by province and other variables as in most cases the reported cases were too few for this type of analysis.