crime severity -> crime severities
2009 WAS A BIG YEAR for folks at Statistics Canada. It marks the roll out of a metric called the Police-Reported Crime Severity Index (PRCSI) that has had a lasting impact on how we quantify crime. Before the PRCSI, crime was counted more simply as an unweighted frequency or proportion. With the PRCSI, different crimes get different weights indicative of their relative severity. Where do the weights come from? As the authors that came up with the PRCSI explain in a 2009 working paper: