P075. Measuring the public’s perceptions of crime seriousness: a review and the development of a scale

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Abstract

Objective: Previous studies on crime seriousness often overlook key factors such as harmfulness, intent, and wrongfulness, and the broader group context of crimes. These gaps impact both scoring methods and results. This paper introduces a new scale that integrates these elements.
Method: A survey of 242 adults rated 37 Penal Code offenses across nine categories on harm, intent, and wrongfulness. Data analysis with the successive intervals' method produced a weighted seriousness index.
Results: The new scale highlights the importance of measuring each component of crime seriousness and category separately. Harm consistently had the greatest impact on public perceptions, while intent and wrongfulness varied by category. Including category severity improved accuracy, with some offenses seen as more serious due to their category rather than inherent severity. Comparison with legal sentencing revealed alignments and discrepancies between public views and legal standards, highlighting areas of consensus and conflict.
Conclusions: This study introduces a novel approach to measuring crime seriousness using successive intervals (SI) scaling method. By integrating the weights of all components of crime seriousness and crime categories, it offers insights that can apprise research and policymaking, especially in areas where public opinion diverges from legal sentencing standards.

Author

• Valeriya Treshenkov, Western Galili College