This article analyses the development of victimization surveys in Latin American countries through the prism of the influence of the International Crime Victim Survey. The first Latin American victimization surveys were conducted in the 1970s. Until the participation of three countries of the region in the 1992 wave of the ICVS, surveys were scarce and not institutionalized. Since then, many Latin American governments started conducting their own victimization surveys while, in parallel, NGOs and private foundations and organizations also carried out local surveys. During the 2000s, the region registered an explosion of victimization studies: Chile and Mexico introduced annual victimization surveys with samples of tens of thousands of households, most countries carried out one-shot surveys, and two regional periodical victimization surveys were implemented. Almost all these surveys are conducted through face‐to‐face interviews.