Table 9
Completed adult criminal court cases, by most serious offence, Canada, 2005/2006 to 2013/2014

Table 9
Completed adult criminal court cases, by most serious offence, Canada, 2005/2006 to 2013/2014
Table summary
This table displays the results of Completed adult criminal court cases. The information is grouped by Most serious offence (appearing as row headers), 2005/2006, 2006/2007, 2007/2008, 2008/2009, 2009/2010, 2010/2011, 2011/2012, 2012/2013 and 2013/2014, calculated using number of completed cases units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Most serious offenceNote 1 2005/2006 2006/2007 2007/2008 2008/2009 2009/2010 2010/2011 2011/2012 2012/2013 2013/2014
number of completed cases
Violent offences  
Include offences against the administration of justice 16,459 16,599 17,540 18,056 18,371 18,450 18,306 18,001 16,681
Exclude offences against the administration of justice 77,520 75,737 76,523 77,058 78,317 76,270 74,919 73,032 68,181
Total 93,979 92,336 94,063 95,114 96,688 94,720 93,225 91,033 84,862
Property offences  
Include offences against the administration of justice 28,976 29,128 29,564 28,507 29,269 29,685 27,207 26,393 25,647
Exclude offences against the administration of justice 67,653 65,140 65,006 64,549 68,911 68,229 64,173 62,271 56,540
Total 96,629 94,268 94,570 93,056 98,180 97,914 91,380 88,664 82,187
Offences against the administration of justice  
Include offences against the administration of justice 72,645 75,542 82,106 83,499 84,684 85,947 85,607 85,554 82,116
Exclude offences against the administration of justice Note ...: not applicable Note ...: not applicable Note ...: not applicable Note ...: not applicable Note ...: not applicable Note ...: not applicable Note ...: not applicable Note ...: not applicable Note ...: not applicable
Total 72,645 75,542 82,106 83,499 84,684 85,947 85,607 85,554 82,116
Drug offencesNote 2  
Include offences against the administration of justice 3,180 3,606 3,938 4,309 3,934 3,811 3,753 3,461 3,290
Exclude offences against the administration of justice 21,462 22,002 23,645 24,378 24,632 25,562 25,922 24,419 21,735
Total 24,642 25,608 27,583 28,687 28,566 29,373 29,675 27,880 25,025
Other Criminal Code offencesNote 3  
Include offences against the administration of justice 11,013 11,295 12,036 12,473 12,761 13,210 12,706 13,255 11,896
Exclude offences against the administration of justice 82,116 80,283 81,656 84,642 87,763 87,315 80,156 80,014 73,422
Total 93,129 91,578 93,692 97,115 100,524 100,525 92,862 93,269 85,318
Youth Criminal Justice ActNote 4  
Include offences against the administration of justice 154 131 140 146 181 198 188 143 146
Exclude offences against the administration of justice 1,144 1,074 1,039 1,080 1,228 1,280 1,179 1,071 986
Total 1,298 1,205 1,179 1,226 1,409 1,478 1,367 1,214 1,132
Total offences  
Include offences against the administration of justice 132,427 136,301 145,324 146,990 149,200 151,301 147,767 146,807 139,776
Exclude offences against the administration of justice 249,895 244,236 247,869 251,707 260,851 258,656 246,349 240,807 220,864
Total 382,322 380,537 393,193 398,697 410,051 409,957 394,116 387,614 360,640
... not applicable
Note 1.

A case that has more than one charge is represented by the charge with the 'most serious offence' (MSO). The MSO is selected using the following rules: first, court decisions are considered and the charge with the 'most serious decision' (for example, guilt) is selected. Second, in cases where two or more charges result in the same MSO (for example, guilty), Criminal Code sanctions are considered. The charge with the most serious offence type is selected according to an offence seriousness scale, based on actual sentences handed down by courts in Canada. If, after looking at the offence seriousness scale, two or more charges remain tied then information about the sentence type and duration of the sentence are considered (for example, custody and length of custody, then probation and length of probation, etc.).

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Note 2.

Includes drug possession and other drug-related charges.

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Note 3.

Includes offences such as weapons, prostitution, impaired driving, other Criminal Code traffic violations, residual Criminal Code violations and other residual federal statutes.

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Note 4.

Includes only adults charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Return to note 4 referrer

Note: As of 2005/2006, all provincial and territorial courts in 10 provinces and 3 territories reported to the Integrated Criminal Court Survey. Information from superior courts in Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan as well as municipal courts in Quebec were unavailable. The absence of data from superior courts in these five jurisdictions may have resulted in a slight underestimation of the severity of sentences since some of the most serious cases, which are likely to result in the most severe sanctions, are processed in superior courts. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the terms 'acquittal' and 'dismissed' are used interchangeably, resulting in an under-count of the number of acquittals in that province. The information from Quebec's provincial courts is reported using the Adult Criminal Court Survey National Data Requirements (NDR), rather than the ICCS NDR. The data are converted to the ICCS format, to the extent possible, during data processing activities. This reporting limitation results in a lack of data on conditional sentences.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Integrated Criminal Court Survey.
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