Techniques are disclosed for normalizing and publishing alerts using a behavioral recognition-based video surveillance system configured with an alert normalization module. Certain embodiments allow a user of the behavioral recognition system to provide the normalization module with a set of relative weights for alert types and a maximum publication value. Using these values, the normalization module evaluates an alert and determines whether its rareness value exceed a threshold. Upon determining that the alert exceeds the threshold, the module normalizes and publishes the alert.