Uruguay with its new survey module joins the countries that measure victimization with the assistance of the Center of Excellence and in alignment with the LACSI Initiative.

The National Institute of Statistics of Uruguay and the Ministry of Interior presented the first results of the Victimization Module corresponding to the second semester 2024 of the Continuous Household Survey of Uruguay. The module had the assistance of the Center of Excellence for Statistical Information on Government, Public Safety, Victimization and Justice (CoE) and was adapted to the Initiative for the Crime Victimization Survey in Latin America and the Caribbean (LACSI).  This module represents an unprecedented milestone in Latin America for the measurement of victimization as it is the first to be collected on a monthly and permanent basis.

In his opening remarks, Diego Obal, Technical Director of INE Uruguay, pointed out the importance of the module as part of a resolution of the Presidency of the Republic to measure national security. He also thanked the CoE for its technical assistance, which he highlighted as “the reference and standard in Latin America for measuring crime victimization”.

Subsequently, Mariana Kiffer, head of the UNODC office in Uruguay, mentioned that an internationally comparable methodology such as LACSI will allow the formulation of evidence-based public policies that will have an impact on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Adriana Oropeza, Coordinator of the CoE, then presented the LACSI initiative as the regional effort for a standardized survey that has achieved in most of the region to unify the way of measuring victimization and that in the case of Uruguay’s module has accompanied the adaptation made by INE of the LACSI methodology to design, build, collect data and define the results indicators.

In the presentation of results Diego Obal showed the indicators for the first six months of 2024 based on a sample of 12 thousand households. The indicators described were: the overall incidence, percentage of reporting and prevalence of robberies, as well as frauds occurring in households and individuals. He also pointed out that microdata will soon be available, so that more in-depth studies can be carried out, and that due to their continuous nature, it will be possible to generate a series analysis.

For his part, Diego Sanjurjo of the Ministry of Interior indicated that both the module and the national survey to be carried out this year (which will also have the technical assistance of the CoE originate from the national preventive strategy in its effort to improve data on crime and violence. He also noted that the module is an unprecedented development that was carried out in a participatory, rigorous and transparent manner. With it, a historical debt of implementing an institutionalized survey is settled.

Finally, the Minister of the Interior, Nicolás Martinelli, highlighted that the results of this module complement the statistics published from administrative records, as well as the joint efforts to conduct a biannual National Victimization Survey aligned with the LACSI Initiative in 2025.

In the end, with this module the CoE fulfills its objective of providing technical assistance to the countries of the region to improve the quality and quantity of crime, public safety, corruption, government and justice statistics.