Crime and justice

Description:

This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.

Police records collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program are the leading source of national crime statistics. Recently, audits to correct UCR records have raised concerns as to how to handle the errors discovered in these files. Concerns centre around the methodology used to detect errors and the procedures used to correct errors once they have been discovered. This paper explores these concerns, focusing on sampling methodology, establishment of a statistical-adjustment factor, and alternative solutions. The paper distinguishes the difference between sample adjustment and sample estimates of an agency's data, and recommends sample adjustment as the most accurate way of dealing with errors.

Description:

This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.

In order to compensate for unreported, missing, unreasonable, or unusable data, the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program conducts data estimations and imputations using a variety of statistical methods. This paper illustrates how offence and arrest data are estimated using a variety of different approaches. The paper also points out the strengths and the shortcomings of each approach.

Description:

This report presents a description of the organization and operation of provincial and territorial maintenance enforcement programs. It describes the relevant provincial legislation, highlights latest developments, provides a general description of each program, describes how each manages cases, intake/withdrawal procedures, tracing, monitoring, payment processing and enforcement practices. As such, the reader will be able to identify the variations and similarities between the various programs. All of the maintenance enforcement programs rely upon several federal acts to collect, trace and enforce support payments. Therefore, a review of the relevant federal legislation is presented first, followed by a description of each provincial and territorial maintenance enforcement program.

Description:

This report is an examination of the annual police-reported crime in Canada. Data are presented within the context of both short and long term trends. The analysis focuses on trends in violent crime, property crime, other Criminal Code offences, impaired driving offences, drug offences and youth crime. Crime rates are examined at the national and provincial/territorial levels, as well as for major metropolitan areas. The trend in Canada's crime rate is put into perspective by comparing it with crime trends in some other industrialized countries. This is an annual periodical of great interest to those who work within the criminal justice system or anyone who is interested in crime in Canada.

Description:

Using data from the Homicide Survey and a combination of other statistical data sources this Juristat will examine spousal homicide trends over the period 1974-2000. In 1991 changes were made to the Homicide Survey providing more detailed breakdowns of the relationship between victims and offenders permitting comparisons of married, common-law, separated and divorced couples as well as boyfriends and girlfriends. This allows trends in other intimate partner homicides (e.g. boyfriends and girlfriends) to be examined from 1991-2000. These trends in spousal homicide will be assessed within the context of other factors, including improvements to women’s economic and social well-being (e.g. average annual income, delayed marriage and child-rearing), growth in the availability of emergency services for battered women, trends in spousal victims’ use of social services, trends in reporting spousal violence to the police, and the evolution of charging and prosecution policies.

Description:

The 1999 General Social Survey was the first attempt by Statistics Canada to measure spousal violence in a comprehensive way on a traditional victimization survey. Both women and men were asked a module of 10 questions concerning violence by their current or previous spouses and common-law partners. The nature of the violence under study ranged in severity from threats to sexual assault and concerned acts that happened in the 12-month and 5-year periods preceding the survey interview.

Description:

Persons aged 65 years and older constitute one of the fastest growing segments of the Canadian population. In 2000, there were an estimated 3.8 million older men and women representing 13% of the country's total population, up from 9% just 20 years earlier. Declining fertility rates and increased longevity, due primarily to improved health care, have contributed to this rapid growth. And as the baby-boom generation (those born between 1946 and 1965) begins to reach the age of 65 early in the next decade, the absolute number of older adults, as well as their share of the total population, is expected to grow even more quickly. Indeed, by 2021, population projections estimate that older Canadians will number close to 6.7 million or about one-fifth of the total population (George et al. 2001).

Description:

Over the past two decades, the negative consequences of child maltreatment have been extensively studied. Sexual and physical assault, emotional abuse and neglect can have a tremendous impact on the lives of victims and lead to physical health complications, long-term mental health issues, and problems with relationships or social functioning (Latimer 1998). Increasingly, exposure to spousal violence is being recognized as harmful and as putting children at risk for long-term negative effects.

Description:

Bulletins are short documents that provide information or statistics on important justice related topics. The articles cover current issues in justice such as impaired driving, youth and crime, intermittent sentencing, criminal harassment, etc.

Description:

The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics conducted a special study on conditional sentencing in 2001 to improve the level and quality of information available on this disposition and to assess the influence of the new sanction on correctional services caseloads. The purpose of this bulletin is to provide a preliminary examination of the results of the special study, as well as the most current data from the Adult Correctional Services Survey and the Adult Criminal Court Survey.

Description: This table contains 75 series, with data for years 1998 - 2000 (not all combinations necessarily have data for all years), and is no longer being released. This table contains data described by the following dimensions (Not all combinations are available): Geography (15 items: Canada; Newfoundland and Labrador; Prince Edward Island; Nova Scotia; ...); Requests for services (5 items: Total facilities; Total requests; Requests for services, housing; Requests for services, non-housing; ...).

Description:

Cycle 13 of the General Social Survey (GSS) is the third cycle (following cycles 3 and 8) that collected information in 1999 on the nature and extent of criminal victimisation in Canada. Focus content for cycle 13 addressed two areas of emerging interest: public perception toward alternatives to imprisonment; and spousal violence and senior abuse. Other subjects common to all three cycles include perceptions of crime, police and courts; crime prevention precautions; accident and crime screening sections; and accident and crime incident reports. The target population of the GSS is all individuals aged 15 and over living in a private household in one of the ten provinces.

Description:

This document brings together data from a number of Statistics Canada surveys and provides a visual perspective on the following subject areas: crime, police administration, adult and youth court activity, the correctional population, costs of the criminal justice system, violence against women, Canadians' experiences with crime, and their perceptions and fears of crime.

Description:

This section on crime and justice contains 328 series, arranged in four main sub-sections: crime and law enforcement, (series Z1-65); court proceedings, (series Z66-172); penal institutions, (series Z173-226); and juvenile delinquency, (series Z227-291). Population statistics are appended to facilitate use of the series, (series Z292-328). These series have been selected and arranged not only to provide usable quantitative information covering the field of criminal justice but also to indicate something of the historical development of justice statistics in Canada over the past century.

Description:

This report presents summary crime statistics as well as police personnel and expenditures for all municipal police departments in Canada. The report is organized by province and by city-size within province. Data include violent and property crime rates, clearance rates, population per officer and per capita costs.

Description:

This publication provides timely correctional population data for adults and young offenders. The data are reported by month, for each correctional jurisdiction (province/territory and federal) and by security status for adult offenders in custody. Summary data on supervised probationers are also included. The publication also provides young offender data by province/territory, by custody status, by month, as well as data on young offenders on supervised probation. The data presented in the report cover a five-year monthly time series. Data analysis, definitions, data quality measures and a glossary are also part of this publication. Statistics are derived from an ongoing data tables collection process conducted bi-annually since 1987.

Description:

Data from the 1993 Violence Against Women Survey on the incidence and nature of work-related sexual harassment.

Description:

First Nations, Métis and Inuit people are overrepresented among victims of violence; a violence that may be rooted in the traumatic history of colonialization. In efforts to better understand the causes, consequences, nature and extent of violent victimization of Indigenous people in Canada, this Juristat article presents data from multiple sources, including the 2019 General Social Survey on Canadian’s Safety (victimization), the 2018 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces and the Homicide Survey. More specifically, the analysis will focus on lifetime and recent experiences (past 12 months) of violent victimization, trends in spousal violence and homicide, history of childhood abuse or neglect, perceptions of safety from crime, perceptions of the police and experiences of discrimination. Sociodemographic, economic and community-level characteristics statistically associated with these issues will be explored. Whenever possible, data will be disaggregated by Indigenous groups.

Description: This Juristat article examines self-reported and police-reported data on seniors’ experiences with violent victimization, and their perceptions of personal safety in Canada. It provides information on annual trends, and discusses characteristics of victims, incidents and accused persons.

Description:

This Juristat article examines human trafficking incidents that were reported to police between 2010 and 2020. Information on rates of victimization—and characteristics of victims and accused persons—is presented. In addition, prior contact with police among accused persons and court outcomes are examined.

Description:

This infographic discusses human trafficking incidents that were reported to police between 2010 and 2020.

Description:

This Juristat article examines the nature and prevalence of firearm-related violent crime in Canada. Trends in firearm-related violent crime between 2009 and 2020 are presented at the national, provincial/territorial and census metropolitan area levels as well as for urban and rural regions. Using data from the Uniform Crime Reporting and Homicide Surveys, this article provides information on violent crime involving firearms in Canada including an examination of the types of firearms (such as handguns, rifles, or shotguns) which are most commonly involved in firearm-related violent crime. It also addresses characteristics of the incidents, victims, and accused persons, such as gang-related violence, accused-victim relationships, clearance status, age of victims and accused persons, and types of offence that most commonly involve firearms.

Description:

Online child sexual exploitation and abuse encompasses a wide range of behaviours, situations, and things, and bestrides criminal thresholds and geographical boundaries. With technological advancements and the proliferation of smart devices in recent years, the current prevalence of this crime in Canada is not known. Using data from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey and the Integrated Criminal Court Survey, this article aims to shed light on the extent and nature of online child sexual exploitation and abuse that come to the attention of Canadian authorities. The article examines the types of incidents reported to police, including child pornography, and the characteristics of victims and accused persons identified in connection with these incidents.

Further, an analysis of court data is presented, examining the types of charges processed in Canadian courts related to sexual offences against children that were likely facilitated online. Some characteristics of adults and youth accused are presented, along with the outcome of the charges laid against them, including sentencing information for those who were found guilty.

Description: This article examines the experiences Indigenous women in Canada, and where possible provides results for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Indigenous identity groups. The focus is on experiences of violent victimization and perceptions of neighbourhood, safety, and the criminal justice system. The prevalence of gender-based violent victimization in Canada is examined using self-reported data from the 2018 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces. Data from the 2019 General Social Survey (GSS) on Canadians’ Safety (Victimization) is used to explore confidence in police and criminal courts, as well as perceptions of neighbourhood cohesion and disorder. In addition, homicide data highlights the prevalence and characteristics of homicide of Indigenous women in Canada.

Description: This Juristat article presents findings on the prevalence and characteristics of violence against women in remote areas of Canada. Using data from the 2019 General Social Survey on Canadians’ Safety (Victimization), the 2019 Uniform Crime Reporting Survey, and the 2018 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces, it explores both self-reported and police-reported victimization of women aged 15 and older in areas of Canada which are considered to be remote by the Remoteness Index. Analysis includes intimate partner violence as well as violence committed by non-intimate partners, and various sociodemographic factors are considered. Women’s perceptions of safety are also presented.

Description: This article uses data from the 2020/2021 cycle of the Survey of Residential Facilities for Victims of Abuse to examine the characteristics of facilities in Canada that are primarily mandated to serve victims of abuse (defined as ongoing Victimization). The article outlines the profile of residents served by the facilities, the types of services offered and operational information including revenues, expenses, admissions, length of stay and challenges faced. Information regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these facilities are also presented.

Description:

This infographic presents characteristics of Canadian residential facilities for victims of abuse. Data from the 2020/2021 Survey of Residential Facilities for Victims of Abuse are analyzed to provide a one-day snapshot of the characteristics of the residents being served. It also includes information on annual admissions, occupancy rates and capacity, turn-aways, and challenges facing facilities and their residents. Information regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these facilities are also presented. For detailed information, see the full Juristat article: "Canadian residential facilities for victims of abuse, 2020/2021".

Description: The purpose of the Adult Correctional Services (ACS) survey is to provide important indicators as to the nature and characteristics in correctional case-flow that are of use to agencies responsible for the delivery of these services, the media and the public. The survey collects annual data on the delivery of adult correctional services from both the provincial/territorial and federal correctional systems.

Description: The survey provides the justice community, academics and the public with information on revenues, expenditures, personnel, and caseload statistics associated with the delivery and administration of legal aid in Canada.

Description: The objective of the Youth Court Survey (YCS) is to develop and maintain a database of statistical information on appearances, charges, and cases in youth courts.

Description: The objective of this survey is to provide information on the human resources and costs associated with the operation of Canadian courts.

Description: The objective of the Integrated Criminal Court Survey (ICCS) is to develop and maintain a national database of statistical information on appearances, charges, and cases in youth courts and adult criminal courts. The survey is intended to be a census of pending and completed federal statute charges heard in provincial-territorial and superior courts in Canada. Appeal courts, federal courts (e.g., Tax Court of Canada) and the Supreme Court of Canada are not covered by the survey.

Description: The Corrections Key Indicator Report for Adults and Youth monitors trends in correctional populations and provides a basis for calculating incarceration rates based on the Canadian population. This survey describes average counts of adults and youth under custody and under community supervision, who are under the responsibility of provincial/territorial correctional services.

Description: This survey collects detailed data on homicide in Canada. The survey has collected police-reported data on the characteristics of all murder incidents, victims and accused persons since 1961 and all homicides (including murder, manslaughter and infanticide) since 1974.

Description: The primary objective of this survey is to provide information on the human resources and costs associated with the delivery of criminal prosecutions services in Canada.

Description: The purpose of the Youth Custody and Community Services (YCCS) survey is to provide important indicators as to the nature and case characteristics of youth in correctional services and are of use to agencies responsible for the delivery of these services, the media and the public. The survey collects annual data on the delivery of youth correctional services from the provinces and territories.

Description: This survey collects statistical and descriptive information on child and spousal support payments from provincial and territorial maintenance enforcement programs.