The Marshall Project

How Hard is it to Count Violent Crimes?

A new survey finds it’s more difficult than you might think.

The government tries to measure crime in many ways, including the latest survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics released Thursday. The National Crime Victimization Survey is meant to estimate how many people in the U.S. are victims of crime each year.

Like many crime studies, the survey is imperfect. But this year’s edition had more inconsistencies than most.

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