Table 7
Court outcomes for making or distributing child pornography cases, pre- and post-2012 mandatory minimum penalty (MMP) legislation

Table 7
Court outcomes for making or distributing child pornography cases, pre- and post-2012 mandatory minimum penalty (MMP) legislation
Table summary
This table displays the results of Court outcomes for making or distributing child pornography cases. The information is grouped by Court outcomes of completed court cases (appearing as row headers), Summary cases, Indictable cases, Pre-2012 and Post-2012, calculated using number and percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Court outcomes of completed court cases Summary cases Indictable cases
Pre-2012Table 7 Note 1 Post-2012Table 7 Note 2 Pre-2012Table 7 Note 1 Post-2012Table 7 Note 2
number percent number percent number percent number percent
Total cases, by decision 26 100 39 100 73 100 64 100
Acquitted 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Stay of proceeding 2 8 6 15 3 4 0 0
Withdrawn, dismissed, discharged 4 15 4 10 9 12 5 8
Other decision 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Guilty 20 77 29 74 61 84 59 92
Total guilty cases, by sentence and custody length 20 100 29 100 61 100 59 100
Non-custodial sentence 1 6 2 8 0 0 2 4
CustodyTable 7 Note 3 17 94 22 92 54 100 55 96
Less than 14 days 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 0
14 to 44 days 1 6 0 0 0 0 0 0
45 to 89 days 1 6 2 8 2 4 0 0
90 days to less than 6 months 11 61 4 17 4 7 1 2
6 months to less than 1 year 3 17 12 50 5 9 6 11
1 year to less than 2 years 1 6 3 13 29 54 38 67
2 years or longer 0 0 0 0 14 26 10 18
Note 1

Pre-2012 selected cases: Date of offence and case completed between December 19, 2009 and August 9, 2012.

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Note 2

Post-2012 selected cases: Date of offence and case completed between August 9, 2012 (enactment of amended MMPS) and March 31, 2015 (latest case end for court data).

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Note 3

Custodial sentence lengths reflect the amount of time remaining to be served on a custodial sentence after credit has been awarded for time spent in pre-sentence custody. However, in some jurisdictions, the length of custody information represents the total length of custody imposed by the court. Therefore, some cases falling into the category below the minimum sentence may still meet the mandatory minimum requirement. Percentages exclude cases where sentence type was not reported.

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Note: Includes child pornography offences of making (s. 163.1 (2)) and of distributing (s. 163.1 (3)) child pornography. MMPs were amended in 2012 from 90 days to 6 months for summary offences. There was no change to the 1 year minimum for indictable offences. A case is one or more charges against an accused person or company that were processed by the courts at the same time and received a final decision. Cases that involve more than one charge are represented by the most serious offence. Case length is elapsed time between the first court appearance to the date of decision. See "Methodology and data quality" for a description of case selection for the definition of time periods pre- and post- 2012 legislation. Excludes 24% of selected cases where type of proceeding (summary or indictable) was not reported. Cases selected from adult criminal courts cases where case completion is between April 1, 2000 and March 31, 2015 for ten jurisdictions (excluding Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Nunavut) based on survey coverage. Data exclude information from superior courts in Prince Edward Island, Ontario, and Saskatchewan as well as municipal courts in Quebec due to the unavailability of data.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Integrated Criminal Court Survey.
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