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Crime Severity Index

Domain

Good governance

Subdomain

Safety and security

Indicator

Crime Severity Index


Definition

The Crime Severity Index tracks changes in the severity of police-reported crime by accounting for both the amount of crime reported by police in a given jurisdiction and the relative seriousness of the crimes.


Measurement

The Crime Severity Index measures changes in the level of severity of crime in Canada from year to year. It is complementary to the crime rate which measures only the volume of crime reported to the police per 100,000 population.

The Index includes all Criminal Code violations including traffic, as well as drug violations and all Federal Statutes.

In the Index, all crimes are assigned a weight based on their seriousness. The level of seriousness is based on actual sentences handed down by the courts in all provinces and territories. More serious crimes are assigned higher weights, and less serious offences lower weights. As a result, more serious offences have a greater impact on changes in the Index. These weights are updated using data from the Integrated Criminal Courts Survey (ICCS) every 5 years.

The Index is standardized to "100" for Canada, using 2006 as a base year.

Please refer to the document Measuring Crime in Canada: Introducing the Crime Severity Index and Improvements to the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey for more information.

Data sources


Data visualizations


Data analysis


Additional information

For more information on the concepts and use of the severity indexes, please watch the video Measuring crime in Canada: a detailed look at the Crime Severity Index.

Also, please refer to the document Measuring Crime in Canada: Introducing the Crime Severity Index and Improvements to the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.

More statistics on crime and justice in Canada are available at Crime and justice statistics

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