The Cambridge Crime Harm Index: Measuring Total Harm from Crime Based on Sentencing Guidelines

Lawrence Sherman,Peter William Neyroud,Eleanor Neyroud

doi:10.1093/police/paw003

Abstract

The logic of simply summing crimes of all kind into a single total has long been challenged as misleading. All crimes are not created equal. Counting them as if they are fosters distortion of risk assessments, resource allocation, and accountability. To solve this problem, Sherman (2007, 2010, 2011 and 2013) has offered a general proposal to create a weighted 'Crime Harm Index (CHI).' This article provides and explicates a detailed procedure for operatio- nalizing this idea in UK: what we call the 'Cambridge CHI.' The new elements of the Cambridge CHI presented here are (1) the use of the 'starting point' in the national Sentencing Guidelines to define the number of days in prison for each offence type; (2) the exclusion of proactively detected, previously unreported offences, and (3) a comparative analysis of the Cambridge and other approaches to weighting crime harm, judged by a three-pronged test of dem- ocracy, reliability, and cost.

Highlights

A count of all crimes has no specific meaning unless all crimes are created equal
Sherman (2013) was silent on this point, we propose here to create a Cambridge Crime Harm Index (CHI) that excludes proactively generated crime detection by police and organizational victims
A decision to do so seems highly implausible. Using this three-pronged test, we show below how to use the robust process of developing sentencing guidelines tariffs to incorporate multiple opinion polls, studies of economic and psychological costs of crime, sentencing precedents, and even a threat of legislative intervention

Summary

Introduction

A count of all crimes has no specific meaning unless all crimes are created equal. All crimes are not created equal. Integrating all crimes in a weighted index represents a far more useful approach for resource allocation and crime prevention. The basic principle for a meaningful measure of crime is to classify each crime type according to how harmful it is, relative to all other crimes. This argument has already been made in general terms (Sherman 2007, 2010, 2011, 2013).

Policing Article

Findings

Conclusion