Harm: a Neglected Concept in Criminology, a Necessary Benchmark for Crime-Control Policy

Paoli, Letizia; Greenfield, Victoria A.

doi:10.1163/15718174-21042034

Cited by 24 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The argument for using such an index in quantitative analysis has been made in different ways by several criminologists, amongst them Sherman (2007Sherman ( , 2011Sherman ( , 2013Sherman et al 2016), who has repeatedly stated that "all crimes are not created equal". Sherman argued that an index provides a useful statistical tool for analysis and decision-making, for example, regarding resource allocation and crime prevention (Gorsuch 1938;Sellin and Wolfgang, 1964;Wolfgang et al 1985;Sparrow 2008;Greenfield and Paoli 2013;Neyroud 2017). Sherman et al (2016) provides a series of examples of the potential usefulness of a crime harm index.…”

Section: What Is a Chi?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing the Swedish Crime Harm Index: an Evidence-Based Strategy

Kärrholm

Neyroud

Smaaland

2020

Camb J Evid Based Polic

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Research Question Which method for deriving a Crime Harm Index (Policing 10:171-183, 2016) for Sweden from criminal justice sources offers the best evidence for providing a sensitive indicator of differences in harm levels across offence categories? Data The number of days of imprisonment for each offence category associated with five different kinds of scales were extracted and compared: consensus by an expert panel of judges, the statutory maximum penalties, statutory minimum penalties, the average of maximum and minimum penalties and the average of actual sentences imposed in a recent time period for each crime type. Unlike the UK, for which the Cambridge Crime Harm Index draws on sentencing guidelines, Sweden has no such guidelines to offer. Methods The data were compared for sensitivity defined as the difference in length of imprisonment days between high and low severity crimes, as well as other characteristics of the data sources. Findings Given the available alternatives, the sentencing data average of actual sentences handed down by crime type provided the greatest reliability and sensitivity across the penalties for offences of high and low severity. Applying that method to both crime trends and crime mapping produces substantially different results from counting all crimes with equal weight and can be used by police and others to allocate resources with greater precision in relation to harm prevention. Conclusions On both empirical and normative grounds, the average sentences in a recent time period for each crime category provides the most sensitive and democratic method for establishing an officially recognized Swedish Crime Harm Index.

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Section: What Is a Chi?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing the Swedish Crime Harm Index: an Evidence-Based Strategy

Kärrholm

Neyroud

Smaaland

2020

Camb J Evid Based Polic

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“…Harm will no longer be a 'neglected concept' (Paoli and Greenfield 2013) if the WACHI is implemented. Even if it is not adopted as the benchmark reference frame for harm, this article may at least re-ignite the conversation about the pressing need for a standardised method of crime harm measurement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a Crime Harm Index for Western Australia: the WACHI

House

Neyroud

2018

Camb J Evid Based Polic

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Research Question Can a reliable measure of precise harm levels for the 100 most harmful and frequently occurring offences be developed in Western Australia (WA) based on analysis of actual court penalties for first-time offenders? Data Criminal and traffic court sentences in 2.2 million records over 6.5 years were analysed to extract the number of days of imprisonment actually imposed in sentencing decisions for approximately 52,000 first-time offenders (see House 2017). Methods Sentences for all first offenders in a sample of the 102 most common offence categories were analysed to compute for the median number of days of imprisonment to which each first offender was sentenced in each of the categories. Monetary penalties and conditional community sentences were converted to equivalent 'prison days' and added to the computation of the median of days of imprisonment per offence category. The number of reported offences in WA in the study period for each of the 102 categories was then multiplied by the median prison days sentenced per category. The sum of the products of median prison days times offence count was then tallied across all offence categories to form a weighted index of crime harm, which we define as the Western Australian Crime Harm Index (WACHI). Applying a minimum requirement of at least five separate court cases for each crime category, a total of 88 offence categories survived the reliability threshold for inclusion in the index. Findings The 88 offence categories in the WACHI contain both high-harm and highvolume offences, permitting 95% of all offences reported for over 5 years to be assessed for WACHI scores. The counts for these offences moved in different directions from the WACHI total in two of the four year-to-year comparisons. Changes in WACHI were shown to have been highly sensitive to increased reporting of historical sex crimes, isolated in one district each of both Metropolitan Perth and one Regional centre.Camb J Evid Based Polic (2018)

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“…Translation of harms into money can be a way of disciplining subjectivism Paoli and Greenfield, 2013), and in principle, 'willingness to pay to prevent harm x'is a way of revealed preferences (though in the real world, differences in ability to pay may make more practical impact). The history of 'threat assessments' is one of largely political (with a small 'p') judgements dressed up as scientific ones, but there are ongoing efforts (refs) to make these more rigorous.…”

Section: Costs Of Organised Crimementioning

confidence: 99%

The impacts of organised crime in the EU: some preliminary thoughts on measurement difficulties

Levi

2015

Contemporary Social Science

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This article analyses the social construction of the problem of organised crime and associated problems of measurement. It reports on a study conducted for the European Parliament which had three principal aims:1. To produce a critical assessment of the state-of-the art in terms of what is and is not known about the prevalence and distribution of different forms of organised crime.2. To set out a robust conceptual framework which would enable us to think more clearly and coherently about the costs of organised crime going forward.3. To use this assessment and framework to interrogate empirical data on the costs of organised crime in the EU, where it is available and is judged to be reasonably valid and reliable, to produce informed estimates of what these social and economic costs might be.It comments on the conceptual and empirical problems involved in this exercise and the policy issues that arise in the context of it.

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Harm: a Neglected Concept in Criminology, a Necessary Benchmark for Crime-Control Policy

Cited by 24 publications

References 23 publications

Designing the Swedish Crime Harm Index: an Evidence-Based Strategy

Designing the Swedish Crime Harm Index: an Evidence-Based Strategy

Developing a Crime Harm Index for Western Australia: the WACHI

The impacts of organised crime in the EU: some preliminary thoughts on measurement difficulties

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