Comment on Nazaretian and Merolla: statistics Canada.

• Date: 01 January 2014

In the April 2013 issue of the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Zavin Nazaretian and David Merolla question the current approach to capping criminal incidents within the Canadian General Social Survey: Victimization (GSS-V). Statistics Canada would like to clarify this approach and correct some interpretation errors in their article, "Questioning Canadian Criminal Incidence Rates: A Re-analysis of the 2004 Canadian Victimization Survey."

The authors correctly note that measures of victimization based on capping have been adopted by leading statistical agencies and are in keeping with international practice. The authors specifically examine the Canadian example and criticize the capping procedure adopted by the GSS-V. In particular, Nazaretian and Merolla suggest that the victimization rates published by Statistics Canada are...