Recommendation 5.13: BJS should carefully study changes in the NCVS survey design before implementing them.

Recommendation 5.14: BJS should study the measurement of emerging or hard-to-reach groups and should develop more appropriate approaches to sampling and measurement of these populations.

Recommendation 5.15: BJS must improve the technical skills of its staff, including mathematical statisticians, computer scientists, survey methodologists, and criminologists.

Finding 6.1: Relatively little is understood about how BJS data are used in developing policy and could be used in improving policy development.

Recommendation 6.1: BJS must ensure that the nation has quality annual estimates of levels and changes in criminal victimization.

Recommendation 6.2: Congress and the administration should ensure that BJS has a budget that is adequate to field a survey that satisfies the goal in Recommendation 6.1.

Recommendation 6.3: More information about the needs of victims is essential to the compensation and assistance goals of the Office of Victims of Crime. Congress should allow additional funding for the collection and improvement of victimization data to be obtained from funds obtained through the Victims of Crime Act.

Recommendation 6.4: Additional resources made available for the NCVS should be used not only to increase the reliability of annual estimates but also to supplement the survey in ways that increase our understanding of criminal victimization.