This bulletin is about citizens' experiences as victims of crime in Oregon.
The information comes from the annual Survey of Serious Crime conducted by the state Crime Analysis Center. This survey has been conducted annually since 1978 and is run during March and April of each year. The survey form contains questions on three topics: victimization and cost of crimes; citizens' use of crime prevention techniques; and their perception of crime and opinions about certain criminal justice issues. For the past five years, survey questionnaires have been mailed to a random sample of 1,500 citizens drawn from the Oregon drivers' license files. The information presented in this report is based on survey data from 1981 and 1982. In these two years, 2,098 completed questionnaires were returned - representing 70 percent of the total sample and over 80 percent of the surveys which reached the individuals to whom they were mailed (i.e., excluding those returned as non-forwardable by the post office). This is an exceptionally high rate of return for a mail-out survey, which definitely strengthens the reliability of the resulting data.