This article is based on the idea that crime should be analyzed in terms of volume and severity. Crime rates are the usual measure of the volume of criminality at a given time or a given place. Statistics Canada recently developed a Crime Severity Index to account for variations in the severity of police-recorded criminal infractions. A close look at its construction reveals that the Index is a weighted rate influenced both by the volume and the severity of recorded infractions. This article introduces a new indicator designed to specifically measure the severity of recorded infractions. The measure is based on simple calculations and easy to interpret. It suggests that the severity of crime has decreased since the 1980s. It also suggests that city and province rankings based solely on crime rates are misleading because high levels of crime do not necessarily indicate a high severity of recorded infractions.