Fact sheet
Alberta

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Alberta, 2016

There were 47,797 victims of violent crime and criminal traffic offences causing death or bodily harm reported by police in Alberta in 2016. This represented 1,121 victims per 100,000 population, above the overall national rate (951) (Table A).
Most (86%) victims of police-reported crime were adults aged 18 and older; 67% were aged 25 and older. Meanwhile, 10% of victims were youth aged 12 to 17 and 4% 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 (12 victims) represented 10% of all victims of homicide and other offences causing death^Note (Table 10.1).
Over two-thirds (68%) of victims of police-reported crime in 2016 were victims of assault: 48% were victims of common assault (level 1) and 17% were victims of major assault (level 2 or 3).^Note Assault victims accounted for seven in ten (70%) of adult victims of police-reported violent crime. In comparison, assault accounted for half (50%) of child and youth victims (Table 10.1). Rates of assault were highest among young adults.
Overall, 7% 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), 17% 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), 15% were victims of sexual assault (almost all sexual assault level 1) and 7% were victims of sexual violations against children (Table 10.1). 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 under one-quarter (24%) of police-reported victims in 2016 were victims of other violent offences including uttering threats (11%) and robbery (6%) (Table 10.1).
While just over half (52%) of police-reported victims were female, they represented a much larger proportion of victims of sexual offences (89%) and of some other violent offences such as criminal harassment (80%) and indecent and harassing communications (72%) (Table 10.2).
Assault was the most common police-reported offence among both male (72%) and female (63%) victims in 2016. Meanwhile, 12% of female victims were victims of sexual offences (10% sexual assault—mostly level 1—and 2% sexual violations against children). In comparison, 2% of males were victims of sexual offences (Table 10.2).
Male and female victims of police-reported sexual offences differed notably by age. Overall, among female victims of all sexual offences, 47% were either children under the age of 12 (15%) or youth aged 12 to 17 (32%). Of all female child and youth victims, 39% were victims of sexual offences: 24% were sexual assault and 15% were sexual violations against children (Table 10.3).
Compared to females, a much larger proportion (71%) of male victims of police-reported sexual offences were either children (46%) or youth (25%). Despite this, sexual offences were still less common among young male children and youth, representing 9% of victims (compared to 39% of their female counterparts). Instead, assault was the most common (63%) offence for male child and youth victims (Table 10.3).

Victim services in Alberta

In Alberta, victim services are provided by police-based programs as well as community-based programs, such as sexual assault centres, domestic violence programs, or programs to assist families of homicide victims. These organizations have programming that also provides court orientation and support to individuals required to testify in court as well as assistance with the preparation of Victim Impact Statements. The Alberta Ministry of Justice and Solicitor General Victims Services provides support to these programs and grant funding from the Victims of Crime Fund. Alberta Justice and Solicitor General Victims Services also provides a financial benefits program for victims of crime.

The information provided below reflects data provided by community-based agencies and police-based programs funded by the Alberta Ministry of Justice and Solicitor General Victims Services to deliver victim services. Police-based programs may be co-located in Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachments, within municipalities or in Indigenous communities. Victims who make use of services from more than one agency may be counted more than once in the data. ^Note^Note

In 2016-2017, provincially funded victim service programs in Alberta assisted 84,856 victims. ^Note^Note
Children and youth accounted for 16% of victims served.

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 10.1
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and age group of victim, Alberta, 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 10.1 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 10.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 10.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 10.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 10.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 10.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 10.1 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	7	4	6	3	2	1	30	17	129	74	177	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 10.1 Note 2}	7	6	3	2	2	2	21	17	90	73	124	100
Attempted murder	0	0	3	6	0	0	9	18	39	76	53	100
Sexual offences	610	18	717	21	319	10	623	19	1,068	32	3,351	100
Sexual assault	309	11	391	15	297	11	623	23	1,068	40	2,700	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	18	9	82	11	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	3	6	5	11	4	9	9	19	26	55	47	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	306	12	386	15	293	11	612	23	1,033	39	2,642	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 10.1 Note 3}	301	46	326	50	22	3	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	651	100
Assaults	843	3	1,290	4	1,139	4	6,087	19	22,592	71	32,392	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	20	3	11	2	21	3	137	22	436	70	625	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	198	3	280	4	293	4	1,453	20	5,209	70	7,474	100
Assault (level 1)	616	3	979	4	815	4	4,327	19	15,779	70	22,590	100
Other^{Table 10.1 Note 4}	9	1	20	1	10	1	170	12	1,168	85	1,703	100
Other violent offences	344	3	658	6	553	5	2,077	18	7,822	68	11,579	100
Robbery	14	1	137	5	150	5	652	23	1,824	66	2,796	100
Criminal harassment	15	1	44	4	58	5	212	17	911	73	1,246	100
Indecent/harassing communications	4	0	58	6	40	4	163	17	697	72	968	100
Uttering threats	177	3	327	6	242	5	780	15	3,833	72	5,446	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	51	9	29	5	19	3	156	27	322	56	580	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	0	0	2	6	9	26	10	29	13	38	34	100
Other^{Table 10.1 Note 5}	83	16	61	12	35	7	104	21	222	44	509	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 10.1 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 10.1 Note 6}	1	3	0	0	1	3	8	22	26	72	36	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 10.1 Note 6}	7	3	13	5	16	6	62	24	164	63	262	100
Total victims	1,812	4	2,684	6	2,030	4	8,887	19	31,801	67	47,797	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 10.2
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and sex of victim, Alberta, 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 10.2 Note 1}
Type of offence	number	percent^{Table 10.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 10.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 10.2 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	46	26	129	74	177	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 10.2 Note 2}	35	28	89	72	124	100
Attempted murder	11	22	40	78	53	100
Sexual offences	2,992	89	354	11	3,351	100
Sexual assault	2,441	91	255	9	2,700	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	10	91	1	9	11	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	40	85	7	15	47	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	2,391	91	247	9	2,642	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 10.2 Note 3}	551	85	99	15	651	100
Assaults	15,704	49	16,201	51	32,392	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	181	29	442	71	625	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	2,719	37	4,726	63	7,474	100
Assault (level 1)	12,537	56	10,004	44	22,590	100
Other^{Table 10.2 Note 4}	267	21	1,029	79	1,703	100
Other violent offences	5,895	51	5,581	49	11,579	100
Robbery	871	31	1,924	69	2,796	100
Criminal harassment	996	80	243	20	1,246	100
Indecent/harassing communications	692	72	274	28	968	100
Uttering threats	2,510	47	2,848	53	5,446	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	471	81	107	19	580	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	30	88	4	12	34	100
Other^{Table 10.2 Note 5}	325	64	181	36	509	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 10.2 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 10.2 Note 6}	13	36	23	64	36	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 10.2 Note 6}	104	40	153	60	262	100
Total victims	24,754	52	22,441	48	47,797	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 10.3
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, Alberta, 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 10.3 Note 1}
	Child victims under 12 years			Youth victims 12 to 17 years			Adult victims 18 years and older			Total victims^{Table 10.3 Note 1}
	number	rate	percent^{Table 10.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 10.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 10.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 10.3 Note 1}
Female victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 10.3 Note 2}	4	1	9	2	1	4	40	2	87	46	2	100
Sexual offences	446	141	15	947	686	32	1,588	97	53	2,992	142	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	213	67	9	630	456	26	1,588	97	65	2,441	116	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 10.3 Note 3}	233	74	42	317	230	58	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	551	26	100
Assaults^{Table 10.3 Note 4}	320	101	2	1,095	793	7	14,241	874	91	15,704	748	100
Other violent offences^{Table 10.3 Note 5}	170	54	3	578	419	10	5,107	313	87	5,895	281	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 10.3 Note 6}	4	1	3	13	9	11	100	6	85	117	6	100
Total female victims	944	299	4	2,635	1,909	11	21,076	1,293	85	24,754	1,179	100
Male victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 10.3 Note 2}	3	1	2	6	4	5	119	7	93	129	6	100
Sexual offences	161	48	46	89	61	25	101	6	29	354	16	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	94	28	37	58	40	23	101	6	40	255	12	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 10.3 Note 3}	67	20	68	31	21	32	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	99	5	100
Assaults^{Table 10.3 Note 4}	519	156	3	1,327	911	8	14,239	848	89	16,201	749	100
Other violent offences^{Table 10.3 Note 5}	173	52	3	633	434	11	4,740	282	85	5,581	258	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 10.3 Note 6}	4	1	2	16	11	9	156	9	89	176	8	100
Total male victims	860	259	4	2,071	1,421	9	19,355	1,152	87	22,441	1,037	100
Total victims^{Table 10.3 Note 7}	1,812	279	4	4,714	1,661	10	40,688	1,230	86	47,797	1,121	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.

Notes

Note

Excludes Criminal Code traffic violations causing death such as impaired driving.

Return to note referrer

Note

The remaining assaults include other assaults such as assault against a peace officer.

Return to note referrer

Note

Sexual violations against children are a set of Criminal Code violations 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 assaults and other sexual offences not specific to children. See the “Definitions” section for a full list of offences in this category.

Return to note referrer

Note

Because of differences in the definition of victims and methods of counting, these victim counts should not be compared to victim counts for other provinces and territories. Moreover, these counts should also not be compared to the count of police-reported victims from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.

Return to note referrer

Note

In addition, the data for victims served may also include some victims of disasters and emergencies, such as wildfires or floods, who received assistance from victim service agencies.

Return to note referrer

Note

Counts represent individuals served as new referrals in the reference year.

Return to note referrer

Note

Includes secondary victims (families) counted once per victim.

Return to note referrer

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Fact sheet
Alberta

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Alberta, 2016

Victim services in Alberta

Detailed data tables

Fact sheet Alberta

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Alberta, 2016

Victim services in Alberta

Detailed data tables

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Fact sheet
Alberta