The development of a Crime Severity Score for England and Wales by the Office for National Statistics represents an important step towards a more sophisticated, two dimensional understanding of police recorded crime data. In the first paper in the Perspectives on policing series Andy Higgins examines what the Crime Severity Score it tells us about recent changes in the policing environment, considers its limitations as a tool for understanding crime and flags up some potential hazards in its usage, particularly as a tool for making judgements about ‘performance’.
