Figures from the Office for National Statistics rank areas according to the severity of crimes that take place there
The centre of Tredegar in Blaenau Gwent(Image: WalesOnline/ Rob Browne)
The most crime-ravaged parts of Wales have been revealed in a new map which shows that criminals cause twice as much harm in some parts of the nation as others.
“Crime severity” scores from the Office for National Statistics measure the seriousness of wrongdoing in each area by examining the type of offending as well as the volume, so a murder or a rape counts much more heavily than a minor theft.
These figures suggest that, in Wales, crime is at its most severe in Newport.
The city suffered a higher impact from robbery and theft than any other part of Wales, while two-thirds of its overall severity score of 20.9 was made up of violent crime and sexual offences. For the biggest stories in Wales first, sign up to our daily newsletter here
Blaenau Gwent had the next highest score of 20.3, mainly fueled by crimes of violence against the person. The impact of sexual offences was most severe in Torfaen, which received the third highest overall score of 19.5.
At the other end of the spectrum, Isle of Anglesey was the safest part of Wales to live with a crime severity score of just 9.7, less than half as high as the score granted to Newport.
Of the four police force areas in Wales, Gwent had the highest average score (17.6), and South Wales the lowest (13.2).
Across the whole of Wales, the average score is 14.1, which is below the England average (16.3).
You can see how it compares where you live using our interactive map, below:
Crime severity scores may offer a truer picture of the impact of crime in each area than crime rates, which are useful in measuring the volume of crime, but don’t distinguish between different types of offences.
They are influenced by the scale of punishment imposed on wrongdoers, so crimes causing a high degree of harm are assigned much higher scores than low-level offences, such as criminal damage.
When crime severity scores were first introduced in the year ending March, 2003, England and Wales was given an overall score of 15.9.
The scores then fell consistently down to a low of 9.3 in the year ending March, 2013, but then began rising each year apart from a dip during the pandemic.
The total peaked at 16.4 in the year ending March, 2023, and currently stands at 16.3.