Fact sheet
Canada

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Canada, 2016

There were 343,870 victims of violent crime and criminal traffic offences causing death or bodily harm reported by police in Canada in 2016. This represented 951 victims per 100,000 population (Table A).
Most (84%) victims of police-reported crime were adults aged 18 and older; 65% were aged 25 and older. Meanwhile, 12% of victims were youth aged 12 to 17 and 5% were children under age 12. When controlling for population, the rate of victimization was highest among youth aged 16 to 17 and young adults aged 18 to 24. Children and youth represented 8% of all victims of homicide and other offences causing death^Note (Table 1.1).
Almost two-thirds (64%) of victims of police-reported crime in 2016 were victims of assault: 45% were victims of common assault (level 1) and 15% were victims of major assault (level 2 or 3). Assault victims accounted for two-thirds (67%) of adult victims of police-reported violent crime. In comparison, assault accounted for almost half (49%) of child and youth victims (Table 1.1).
Overall, 8% of police-reported victims were victims of sexual offences. However, these offences were much more prevalent among child and youth victims that came to the attention of police. Among child victims (under age 12), 16% were victims of sexual assault (almost all sexual assault level 1) and another 17% were victims of sexual violations against children.^Note For youth victims (aged 12 to 17), 14% were victims of sexual assault (almost all sexual assault level 1) and 9% were victims of sexual violations against children (Table 1.1). Among victims of all ages, rates of police-reported sexual assault were highest among youth aged 16 to 17, while sexual violations against children were highest among youth aged 12 to 15 years.
Just over one-quarter (27%) of police-reported victims in 2016 were victims of other violent offences including uttering threats (13%) and robbery (6%) (Table 1.1).
While just over half (52%) of police-reported victims were female, they represented a much larger proportion of victims of sexual offences (88%) and of some other violent offences such as criminal harassment (76%) and indecent and harassing communications (72%) (Table 1.2).
Assault was the most common police-reported offence among both male (69%) and female (60%) victims in 2016. Meanwhile, 13% of female victims were victims of sexual offences (10% sexual assault—mostly level 1—and 3% sexual violations against children). In comparison, 2% of males were victims of sexual offences (Table 1.2).
Male and female victims of police-reported sexual offences differed notably by age. Overall, among female victims of all sexual offences, 50% were either children under the age of 12 (16%) or youth aged 12 to 17 (34%). Of all female child and youth victims, 39% were victims of sexual offences: 22% were sexual assault and 17% were sexual violations against children (Table 1.3).
Compared to females, a much larger proportion (73%) of male victims of police-reported sexual offences were either children (42%) or youth (30%). Despite this, sexual offences were still less common among young male children and youth, representing 10% of victims (compared to 39% for their female counterparts). Instead, assault was the most common (61%) offence for male child and youth victims (Table 1.3).

Note: Percentages have been calculated excluding unknowns. Percentages may not add up to totals due to rounding. Not all percentages presented in the text are provided in the tables. No tables are provided for the Canadian Victim Services Indicators (CVSI) data.

Detailed data tables

Table 1.1
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and age group of victim, Canada, 2016
Table summary
This table displays the results of Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm. The information is grouped by Type of offence (appearing as row headers), Age group, Total victims, Child victims
under 12 years, Youth victims, Adult victims, 12 to 15 years, 16 to 17 years, 18 to 24 years and 25 years and older, calculated using number and percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Type of offence	Age group										Total victims^{Table 1.1 Note 1}
	Child victims under 12 years		Youth victims				Adult victims
	Child victims under 12 years		12 to 15 years		16 to 17 years		18 to 24 years		25 years and older
	number	percent^{Table 1.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 1.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 1.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 1.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 1.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 1.1 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	45	3	30	2	46	3	319	22	1,021	70	1,478	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 1.1 Note 2}	29	4	13	2	17	2	127	18	510	73	704	100
Attempted murder	16	2	17	2	29	4	192	25	511	67	774	100
Sexual offences	5,096	19	6,483	24	2,564	10	5,064	19	7,717	29	27,107	100
Sexual assault	2,497	12	3,260	16	2,287	11	5,064	24	7,717	37	20,929	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	5	5	6	6	4	4	26	24	68	62	110	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	35	9	39	10	34	9	76	20	195	51	379	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	2,457	12	3,215	16	2,249	11	4,962	24	7,454	37	20,440	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 1.1 Note 3}	2,599	43	3,223	53	277	5	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	6,178	100
Assaults	7,868	4	10,827	5	8,643	4	42,066	19	148,469	68	220,406	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	78	2	61	2	124	4	821	24	2,274	68	3,368	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	1,714	4	2,175	5	2,019	4	10,053	21	32,268	67	48,395	100
Assault (level 1)	5,863	4	8,466	5	6,375	4	30,047	19	103,976	67	155,388	100
Other^{Table 1.1 Note 4}	213	2	125	1	125	1	1,145	10	9,951	86	13,255	100
Other violent offences	2,500	3	6,143	7	4,803	5	16,806	18	60,868	67	92,084	100
Robbery	133	1	1,621	8	1,465	8	5,022	26	11,128	57	19,439	100
Criminal harassment	119	1	568	4	559	4	2,233	17	9,489	73	13,033	100
Indecent/harassing communications	56	1	325	6	197	4	771	15	3,863	74	5,242	100
Uttering threats	1,396	3	2,726	6	1,879	4	6,344	15	30,944	71	43,925	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	420	10	156	4	179	4	1,116	27	2,239	54	4,124	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	1	0	46	13	96	26	131	36	89	25	371	100
Other^{Table 1.1 Note 5}	375	6	701	12	428	7	1,189	20	3,116	54	5,950	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 1.1 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 1.1 Note 6}	7	3	2	1	8	4	41	18	165	74	225	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 1.1 Note 6}	82	3	110	4	136	5	598	23	1,636	64	2,570	100
Total victims	15,598	5	23,595	7	16,200	5	64,894	19	219,876	65	343,870	100
... not applicable Note 1 Total victims includes victims where the age was unknown. Percentage calculations exclude victims where the age was unknown. Return to note 1 referrer Note 2 Excludes Criminal Code traffic violations causing death such as impaired driving. Return to note 2 referrer Note 3 Sexual violations against children are a set of Criminal Code offences that specifically concern offences involving child and youth victims. These include offences such as sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching and sexual exploitation, but exclude sexual assault and other sexual offences not specific to children. See the "Definitions" section for a full list of offences in this category. Return to note 3 referrer Note 4 Includes assaults against police and other peace officers, and other types of assaults such as criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Return to note 4 referrer Note 5 Includes violent firearm offences, extortion and other violent violations. Return to note 5 referrer Note 6 Includes dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, failure to stop and other Criminal Code traffic violations. Return to note 6 referrer Note: Victims refer to those aged 89 years and younger. Victims aged 90 years and older are excluded from analyses due to possible instances of miscoding of unknown age within this age category. Percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding. For police-reported incidents that involve violations against the person, a victim record is collected for each victim involved in the incident. If an individual is a victim in multiple incidents in the same reference year, that individual will be counted as one victim for each separate incident. Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.

Table 1.2
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and sex of victim, Canada, 2016
Table summary
This table displays the results of Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm. The information is grouped by Type of offence (appearing as row headers), Female victims, Male victims and Total victims, calculated using number and percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Type of offence	Female victims		Male victims		Total victims^{Table 1.2 Note 1}
Type of offence	number	percent^{Table 1.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 1.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 1.2 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	386	26	1,085	74	1,478	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 1.2 Note 2}	199	28	504	72	704	100
Attempted murder	187	24	581	76	774	100
Sexual offences	23,756	88	3,320	12	27,107	100
Sexual assault	18,638	89	2,267	11	20,929	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	90	83	19	17	110	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	320	84	59	16	379	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	18,228	89	2,189	11	20,440	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 1.2 Note 3}	5,118	83	1,053	17	6,178	100
Assaults	107,150	49	112,273	51	220,406	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	952	28	2,411	72	3,368	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	18,609	39	29,712	61	48,395	100
Assault (level 1)	84,837	55	70,292	45	155,388	100
Other^{Table 1.2 Note 4}	2,752	22	9,858	78	13,255	100
Other violent offences	46,287	50	45,567	50	92,084	100
Robbery	5,757	30	13,676	70	19,439	100
Criminal harassment	9,902	76	3,117	24	13,033	100
Indecent/harassing communications	3,753	72	1,483	28	5,242	100
Uttering threats	20,078	46	23,656	54	43,925	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	3,295	80	824	20	4,124	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	354	96	15	4	371	100
Other^{Table 1.2 Note 5}	3,148	53	2,796	47	5,950	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 1.2 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 1.2 Note 6}	86	39	137	61	225	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 1.2 Note 6}	1,143	45	1,414	55	2,570	100
Total victims	178,808	52	163,796	48	343,870	100
Note 1 Total victims includes victims where the sex was unknown. Percentage calculations exclude victims where the sex was unknown. Return to note 1 referrer Note 2 Excludes Criminal Code traffic violations causing death such as impaired driving. Return to note 2 referrer Note 3 Sexual violations against children are a set of Criminal Code offences that specifically concern offences involving child and youth victims. These include offences such as sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching and sexual exploitation, but exclude sexual assault and other sexual offences not specific to children. See the "Definitions" section for a full list of offences in this category. Return to note 3 referrer Note 4 Includes assaults against police and other peace officers, as well as other types of assaults such as criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Return to note 4 referrer Note 5 Includes violent firearm offences, extortion and other violent violations. Return to note 5 referrer Note 6 Includes dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, failure to stop and other Criminal Code traffic violations. Return to note 6 referrer Note: Victims refer to those aged 89 years and younger. Victims aged 90 years and older are excluded from analyses due to possible instances of miscoding of unknown age within this age category. Percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding. For police-reported incidents that involve violations against the person, a victim record is collected for each victim involved in the incident. If an individual is a victim in multiple incidents in the same reference year, that individual will be counted as one victim for each separate incident. Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.

Table 1.3
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and sex and age group of victim, Canada, 2016
Table summary
This table displays the results of Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm. The information is grouped by Type of offence (appearing as row headers), Age group, Total victims, Child victims
under 12 years, Youth victims
12 to 17 years and Adult victims
18 years and older, calculated using Number, rate and percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Type of offence	Age group									Total victims^{Table 1.3 Note 1}
	Child victims under 12 years			Youth victims 12 to 17 years			Adult victims 18 years and older			Total victims^{Table 1.3 Note 1}
	number	rate	percent^{Table 1.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 1.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 1.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 1.3 Note 1}
Female victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 1.3 Note 2}	21	1	6	23	2	6	335	2	88	386	2	100
Sexual offences	3,695	162	16	8,046	719	34	11,864	81	50	23,756	130	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	1,701	75	9	4,978	445	27	11,864	81	64	18,638	102	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 1.3 Note 3}	1,994	87	39	3,068	274	61	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	5,118	28	100
Assaults^{Table 1.3 Note 4}	2,920	128	3	8,958	800	8	94,574	647	89	107,150	588	100
Other violent offences^{Table 1.3 Note 5}	1,178	52	3	5,168	462	11	39,604	271	86	46,287	254	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 1.3 Note 6}	38	2	3	113	10	9	1,075	7	88	1,229	7	100
Total female victims	7,852	344	4	22,308	1,993	13	147,452	1,009	83	178,808	981	100
Male victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 1.3 Note 2}	24	1	2	51	4	5	1,004	7	93	1,085	6	100
Sexual offences	1,394	58	42	993	84	30	901	6	27	3,320	19	101
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	791	33	35	566	48	25	901	6	40	2,267	13	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 1.3 Note 3}	603	25	59	427	36	41	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	1,053	6	100
Assaults^{Table 1.3 Note 4}	4,885	204	4	10,483	886	9	95,371	669	86	112,273	626	100
Other violent offences^{Table 1.3 Note 5}	1,309	55	3	5,772	488	13	37,914	266	84	45,567	254	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 1.3 Note 6}	49	2	3	142	12	9	1,353	9	88	1,551	9	100
Total male victims	7,661	320	5	17,441	1,475	11	136,543	957	84	163,796	914	100
Total victims^{Table 1.3 Note 7}	15,598	333	5	39,795	1,729	12	284,770	986	84	343,870	951	100
... not applicable Note 1 Total victims includes victims where the age was unknown. Percentage calculations exclude victims where the age was unknown. Return to note 1 referrer Note 2 Includes homicide, other offences causing death and attempted murder. Excludes Criminal Code traffic violations causing death such as impaired driving. Return to note 2 referrer Note 3 Sexual violations against children are a set of Criminal Code offences that specifically concern offences involving child and youth victims. These include offences such as sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching and sexual exploitation, but exclude sexual assault and other sexual offences not specific to children. See the "Definitions" section for a full list of offences in this category. Return to note 3 referrer Note 4 Includes assault (level 1, 2 and 3), assaults against police and other peace officers, and other types of assaults such as criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Return to note 4 referrer Note 5 Includes robbery; criminal harassment; incident/harassing communications; uttering threats; kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking; trafficking in persons and prostitution; violent firearm offences; extortion; and other violent violations. Return to note 5 referrer Note 6 Includes impaired driving, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, failure to stop and other Criminal Code traffic violations. Return to note 6 referrer Note 7 Includes victims where the sex was unknown. Return to note 7 referrer Note: Victims refer to those aged 89 years and younger. Victims aged 90 years and older are excluded from analyses due to possible instances of miscoding of unknown age within this age category. Rates are calculated on the basis of 100,000 population. Populations based upon July 1st estimates from Statistics Canada, Demography Division. Percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding. For police-reported incidents that involve violations against the person, a victim record is collected for each victim involved in the incident. If an individual is a victim in multiple incidents in the same reference year, that individual will be counted as one victim for each separate incident. Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.

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Fact sheet
Canada

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Canada, 2016

Detailed data tables

Fact sheet Canada

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Canada, 2016

Detailed data tables

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Fact sheet
Canada