Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2025

Related context and information

Police-reported crime statistics can be affected by many factors, including reporting behaviour by the public, proactive policing, police resources and practices, public awareness, and legislative changes. As such, they should be interpreted alongside other sources of information. Police-reported data also only reflect incidents that come to the attention of police.

Self-reported victimization data provide a complementary source of information on Canadians' experiences of crime, including incidents not reported to police. For example, in 2019, about 3 in 10 Canadians (29%) indicated that the victimization that they or their household experienced was reported to police. Reporting varied widely depending on the type of crime, from about half of all motor vehicle thefts, break and enters, and robberies, to 6% of sexual assaults.

Readers interested in related topics not covered in this release, or in a broader view of the justice system, may consult previously released products, primarily through the Juristat publication, covering topics such as family and intimate partner violence, the sex trade, trafficking in persons, firearms and violent crime, drug-related crime, urban and rural crime characteristics, self-reported victimization, key indicators for Canadian criminal courts and correctional services, and comparisons between crime in Canada and the United States.

Uniform Crime Reporting Survey

Police-reported crime data (other than detailed information on homicides) are drawn from the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey, a census of all crime known to police services in Canada. As of 2025, data cover 99.6% of the Canadian population. Coverage for each province and territory is as follows: Newfoundland and Labrador (100%), Prince Edward Island (100%), Nova Scotia (100%), New Brunswick (90.9%), Quebec (99.3%), Ontario (99.9%), Manitoba (99.8%), Saskatchewan (98.9%), Alberta (100%), British Columbia (100%), Yukon (98.4%), the Northwest Territories (99.2%) and Nunavut (100%). Police-reported crime statistics conform to a nationally approved set of common crime categories (violations) and definitions. Differences in local police service policies, procedures and enforcement practices can affect the comparability of crime trends.

There are two primary versions of the UCR collection instrument that operate simultaneously: the Aggregate UCR1 Survey and the Incident-Based UCR2 Survey. The UCR1 collects summary data by offence type and has been collected since 1962, permitting a longer historical comparison than the UCR2. The UCR2, introduced in 1988, collects more detailed information (microdata) on incidents, victims and accused persons, and includes a more detailed set of violation categories. The majority of the information presented in this release uses aggregate outputs produced using UCR2 data, with UCR1 offence codes mapped to UCR2 violations codes where possible and imputed where necessary.

Revisions to the UCR Survey are accepted for a one-year period after the data are initially released. For example, when the 2025 crime statistics are released, the 2024 data are updated with any revisions that have been made from May 2025 to May 2026. The data are revised only once and are then permanently frozen. Over the past 10 years, data have been revised upward 10 times, with an average annual revision of 0.52%. Additionally, the 2024 revision to counts of people charged and youth not charged resulted in a 0.60% increase to 2024 counts.

See "Definitions" for detailed explanations of common concepts and terminology used in the analysis of police-reported crime information.

In this release, percent change calculations are based on unrounded numbers.

Understanding and using the Crime Severity Index

The conventional crime rate and the Crime Severity Index (CSI) are two complementary ways to measure police-reported crime. The crime rate measures the volume of crime per 100,000 population, comprising all Criminal Code violations (except traffic violations). The CSI measures both the volume and the severity of crime and includes all Criminal Code and other federal statute violations. The CSI has a base index value of 100 for 2006. Both the conventional crime rate and the CSI measure crime based on the most serious violation in the criminal incident.

The CSI is not intended to be used in isolation or as a universal indicator of overall safety. It is best understood in a broad context with other information from the justice system continuum, as well as other characteristics, such as population and demographics, labour market conditions and activities, employment and income, and housing and families.

For more information on concepts and the use of the CSI, see "Measuring crime in Canada: Introducing the Crime Severity Index and improvements to the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey" (Catalogue number85-004-X) and the suite of products for Understanding and using the Crime Severity Index, including a video, an accompanying infosheet and reference document, and a webinar recorded in July 2024.

Measuring police-reported shoplifting

In the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey, shoplifting has been collected as a distinct violation code for statistical reporting purposes, allowing it to be analyzed separately from other thefts. The classification of an incident as shoplifting is based on information gathered by police through their investigation and reported to the UCR Survey. Shoplifting is not a separate offence under the Criminal Code and is included within the broader offence of theft.

While shoplifting may be considered a relatively minor offence, it may result in considerable financial loss for businesses. Additionally, online reporting of shoplifting may also contribute to an increase in police-reported incidents relative to other thefts.

Challenges around measuring police-reported child sexual abuse and exploitation material

Section 163.1 of the Criminal Code makes it illegal to access, possess, make, print or distribute child sexual abuse and exploitation material (CSAEM).When there is no victim identified, these offences are reported to the UCR Survey with the most serious violation recorded as CSAEM, which is typically categorized under "other Criminal Code violations." In incidents where a victim is identified, police will report the most serious violation as sexual assault, sexual exploitation or other sexual violations against children, which are categorized as crimes against the person—"violent crimes"—and CSAEM may be reported as a secondary violation.

It is important to note that variations in rates between years may reflect differences in the recognition, reporting, and investigation of CSAEM incidents, and not necessarily lower or higher rates of occurrence. Year-over-year differences in reporting may be influenced by a variety of factors, such as the presence or absence of public awareness campaigns, community engagement and the willingness of the public to report incidents to police. Additionally, police resources, policies and the investigational complexities of CSAEM in particular, and child sexual exploitation more generally, can have a considerable impact on police-reported metrics.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police's National Child Exploitation Crime Centre (NCECC) serves as the primary point of contact in Canada for investigations related to the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet. A substantial increase in the volume and complexity of CSAEM and other cases has placed significant strain on the NCECC and police services, limiting their ability to respond to growing investigative demands.

Additionally, the Supreme Court of Canada's recent decision in R. v. Bykovets (2024 SCC 6)—which held that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy attached to IP addresses under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—may have impacted cybercrime investigations, where IP address information is often the only known identifier. As a result of this decision, police are required to obtain prior judicial authorization (i.e., a warrant or production order) before they can ask third parties (i.e., Internet Service Providers) for subscriber information linking the IP address to an individual. This requirement can hinder or halt investigations, meaning that the number of incidents recorded in police Records Management Systems—and subsequently reported to the UCR Survey—may underestimate the prevalence of this crime.

Only cases captured in a police Records Management System are reported through the UCR Survey, meaning that all other cases—including those waiting to be actioned by the NCECC and police of jurisdiction—are excluded from police-reported data. Therefore, police-reported data on CSAEM likely reflect the number of police investigations for the year and not the full extent of this crime in Canada.

Homicide Survey

Detailed information on the characteristics of homicide victims and accused persons is drawn from the Homicide Survey, which collects police-reported information on the characteristics of all homicide incidents, victims and accused persons in Canada. This survey began collecting information on all murders in 1961 and was expanded in 1974 to include all incidents of manslaughter and infanticide. The term "homicide" is used to refer to each single victim of homicide. For instance, a single incident can have more than one victim. In this release, each victim is counted as a homicide.

Detailed information on the characteristics of homicides such as rates across geographies, method of death and gang-relation, and the characteristics of victims and accused persons, such as Indigenous identity or racialized group information, age, gender and relationship to the accused can be found in online data tables. An analytical report summarizing some of this more detailed information will also be released in the fall.

Indigenous identity and the Homicide Survey

Indigenous identity is reported by police to the Homicide Survey and is determined through information found with the victim or accused person, such as status cards, or through information supplied by victims' families, by community members or from other sources (i.e., band records). Forensic evidence such as genetic testing results may also be an acceptable means of determining the Indigenous identity of victims. Given the potential limitations of secondary identification, victim identification may be underreported.

For the purposes of the Homicide Survey, Indigenous identity includes people identified by police as First Nations people (status or non-status), Métis or Inuit, and Indigenous people whose Indigenous group is not known to police. Non-Indigenous identity refers to instances where the police have confirmed that a victim is not an Indigenous person. Indigenous identity reported as "unknown" by police includes instances where police are unable to determine the Indigenous group of the victim or where the Indigenous group is not collected by the police service.

Indigenous peoples in Canada continue to face a disproportionate risk of homicide, which is deeply rooted in the historical and present-day effects of colonization, including systemic discrimination, poverty and intergenerational trauma.

For more information and context on homicides and victimization among Indigenous people, see for example, the following sources: "Violent victimization and perceptions of safety: Experiences of First Nations, Métis and Inuit women in Canada" and "Victimization of First Nations people, Métis and Inuit in Canada." Furthermore, additional context on the historical and present-day effects of colonization, including systemic discrimination, poverty and intergenerational trauma can be found in the following sources: "Reclaiming power and place: The Final Report on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls" and "Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future: Summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada."