Fact sheet
British Columbia

Victims of police-reported violent crime in British Columbia, 2016

There were 43,091 victims of violent crime and criminal traffic offences causing death or bodily harm reported by police in British Columbia in 2016. This represented 907 victims per 100,000 population, below the overall national rate (951) (Table A).
Most (88%) victims of police-reported crime were adults aged 18 and older; 71% were aged 25 and older. Meanwhile, 9% of victims were youth aged 12 to 17 and 3% 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 (6 victims) represented 6% of all victims of homicide and other offences causing death^Note (Table 11.1).
Almost seven in ten (69%) of victims of police-reported crime in 2016 were victims of assault: 49% were victims of common assault (level 1) and 16% were victims of major assault (level 2 or 3).^Note Assault victims accounted for seven in ten (71%) of adult victims of police-reported violent crime. In comparison, assault accounted for almost half (48%) of child and youth victims (Table 11.1). 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), 13% were victims of sexual assault (almost all sexual assault level 1) and almost a quarter (24%) 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 10% were victims of sexual violations against children (Table 11.1). 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 (23%) of police-reported victims in 2016 were victims of other violent offences including uttering threats (11%) and robbery (6%) (Table 11.1).
While just under half (49%) of police-reported victims were female, they represented a much larger proportion of victims of sexual offences (91%) and of some other violent offences such as criminal harassment (78%) and indecent and harassing communications (72%) (Table 11.2).
Assault was the most common police-reported offence among both male (74%) and female (63%) 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, less than 1% of males were victims of sexual offences (Table 11.2).
Male and female victims of police-reported sexual offences differed notably by age. Overall, among female victims of all sexual offences, 42% were either children under the age of 12 (12%) or youth aged 12 to 17 (29%). Of all female child and youth victims, 42% were victims of sexual offences: 21% were sexual assault and 20% were sexual violations against children (Table 11.3).
Compared to females, a much larger proportion (68%) of male victims of police-reported sexual offences were either children (39%) or youth (29%). Despite this, sexual offences were still less common among young male children and youth, representing 8% of victims (compared to 42% of their female counterparts). Instead, assault was the most common (61%) offence for male child and youth victims (Table 11.3).

Victim services in British Columbia

In British Columbia, the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General provides funding to approximately 400 victim service and violence against women programs across the province. These programs are primarily delivered by contracted service providers, and provide emotional support, information, referrals and practical assistance to victims of crime. Service types include police-based victim service (PBVS) programs, community-based victim service (CBVS) programs, and counselling and outreach programs for women and children who have experienced violence. The Ministry also supports some specialized programs in order to meet the unique needs of specific types of victims (e.g., sexual assault survivors), as well as programs that provide culturally safe victim services and counselling supports for Indigenous victims and communities. The Ministry also funds VictimLinkBC, a toll-free 24-hour multilingual, confidential telephone service available across BC and the Yukon. In addition, the Ministry provides financial support to victims through the Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP), and safety and notification services through the Victim Safety Unit (VSU).The Victim Court Support Program assists victims through the justice process by coordinating between victim service and justice system personnel.

The information provided below is based on data reported by provincially funded CBVS and PBVS programs, as well as Ministry-based victim services such as CVAP and VictimLinkBC. As a result, victims who make use of services from more than one program may be counted more than once in the data. Additionally, the data regarding victims served may include victims of disasters and/or emergencies, such as wildfires or floods, who received assistance from victim service agencies.^Note

In 2016, British Columbia victim services assisted 80,821 direct victims and 2,880 family members of victims.
Children and youth accounted for 14% of direct victims assisted.
About four out of five (81%) direct victims served were female.
Most direct victims of crime (78%) were victims of a violent crime.^Note Of those victims of violent crime, over half (56%) were victims of physical assault, and another 19% were victims of sexual assault.^Note Almost one-third (32%) of these sexual assault victims were under age 18 (1,583 victims). Across the network of victim services in British Columbia, there were 1,378 reports of individuals who were direct victims of specific sexual violations against children.^Note Over one in five direct victims served (22%) were victims of a non-violent offence such as theft or fraud.

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 11.1
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and age group of victim, British Columbia, 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 11.1 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 11.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 11.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 11.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 11.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 11.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 11.1 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	6	3	3	1	6	3	51	24	147	69	214	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 11.1 Note 2}	2	2	2	2	2	2	13	13	81	81	100	100
Attempted murder	4	4	1	1	4	4	38	34	66	58	114	100
Sexual offences	450	15	602	20	285	9	672	22	1,029	34	3,044	100
Sexual assault	159	7	260	11	257	11	672	28	1,029	43	2,383	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	0	0	3	17	1	6	3	17	11	61	18	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	2	5	0	0	1	3	12	32	22	59	37	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	157	7	257	11	255	11	657	28	996	43	2,328	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 11.1 Note 3}	291	44	342	52	28	4	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	661	100
Assaults	549	2	983	3	866	3	5,059	17	22,090	75	29,580	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	7	2	4	1	8	3	58	18	241	76	318	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	111	2	216	3	209	3	1,251	19	4,964	74	6,753	100
Assault (level 1)	422	2	749	4	632	3	3,629	17	15,467	74	20,919	100
Other^{Table 11.1 Note 4}	9	1	14	1	17	1	121	8	1,418	90	1,590	100
Other violent offences	206	2	589	6	476	5	1,691	17	7,080	71	10,057	100
Robbery	14	1	125	5	147	6	597	24	1,564	64	2,448	100
Criminal harassment	4	0	28	3	32	4	134	17	609	75	808	100
Indecent/harassing communications	20	2	93	7	58	5	162	13	909	73	1,246	100
Uttering threats	98	2	237	5	170	4	565	12	3,474	76	4,552	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	45	12	18	5	9	2	81	21	234	60	387	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	0	0	4	27	2	13	4	27	5	33	15	100
Other^{Table 11.1 Note 5}	25	4	84	14	58	10	148	25	285	48	601	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 11.1 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 11.1 Note 6}	0	0	0	0	3	11	6	21	19	68	28	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 11.1 Note 6}	4	2	4	2	5	3	38	23	117	70	168	100
Total victims	1,215	3	2,181	5	1,641	4	7,517	17	30,482	71	43,091	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 11.2
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and sex of victim, British Columbia, 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 11.2 Note 1}
Type of offence	number	percent^{Table 11.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 11.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 11.2 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	47	22	167	78	214	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 11.2 Note 2}	28	28	72	72	100	100
Attempted murder	19	17	95	83	114	100
Sexual offences	2,768	91	274	9	3,044	100
Sexual assault	2,212	93	169	7	2,383	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	17	94	1	6	18	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	34	92	3	8	37	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	2,161	93	165	7	2,328	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 11.2 Note 3}	556	84	105	16	661	100
Assaults	13,357	45	16,210	55	29,580	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	84	26	234	74	318	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	2,116	31	4,635	69	6,753	100
Assault (level 1)	10,800	52	10,109	48	20,919	100
Other^{Table 11.2 Note 4}	357	22	1,232	78	1,590	100
Other violent offences	4,875	48	5,180	52	10,057	100
Robbery	717	29	1,731	71	2,448	100
Criminal harassment	632	78	176	22	808	100
Indecent/harassing communications	902	72	343	28	1,246	100
Uttering threats	1,987	44	2,564	56	4,552	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	294	76	93	24	387	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	13	87	2	13	15	100
Other^{Table 11.2 Note 5}	330	55	271	45	601	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 11.2 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 11.2 Note 6}	15	54	13	46	28	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 11.2 Note 6}	75	45	93	55	168	100
Total victims	21,137	49	21,937	51	43,091	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 11.3
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, British Columbia, 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 11.3 Note 1}
	Child victims under 12 years			Youth victims 12 to 17 years			Adult victims 18 years and older			Total victims^{Table 11.3 Note 1}
	number	rate	percent^{Table 11.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 11.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 11.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 11.3 Note 1}
Female victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 11.3 Note 2}	3	1	7	4	3	9	39	2	85	47	2	100
Sexual offences	344	129	12	807	565	29	1,611	82	58	2,768	116	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	117	44	5	478	335	22	1,611	82	73	2,212	92	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 11.3 Note 3}	227	85	41	329	230	59	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	556	23	100
Assaults^{Table 11.3 Note 4}	193	72	1	816	571	6	12,331	630	92	13,357	558	100
Other violent offences^{Table 11.3 Note 5}	98	37	2	500	350	10	4,272	218	88	4,875	204	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 11.3 Note 6}	2	1	2	5	4	6	83	4	92	90	4	100
Total female victims	640	240	3	2,132	1,493	10	18,336	937	87	21,137	883	100
Male victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 11.3 Note 2}	3	1	2	5	3	3	159	8	95	167	7	100
Sexual offences	106	37	39	80	53	29	88	5	32	274	12	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	42	15	25	39	26	23	88	5	52	169	7	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 11.3 Note 3}	64	22	61	41	27	39	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	105	4	100
Assaults^{Table 11.3 Note 4}	353	124	2	1,033	683	6	14,808	776	91	16,210	688	100
Other violent offences^{Table 11.3 Note 5}	108	38	2	565	374	11	4,497	236	87	5,180	220	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 11.3 Note 6}	2	1	2	7	5	7	97	5	92	106	4	100
Total male victims	572	201	3	1,690	1,118	8	19,649	1,030	90	21,937	931	100
Total victims^{Table 11.3 Note 7}	1,215	220	3	3,822	1,300	9	37,999	983	88	43,091	907	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

Counts refer to newly opened cases or referrals in the reference year. 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.

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Note

Excludes information for victims from programs where offence information was not available.

Return to note referrer

Note

Excludes 10,312 victims of violent crime where information on the specific offence was not available.

Return to note referrer

Note

This may include some adult survivors of sexual violations against children. 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 referrer

Date modified:: 2018-05-30

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Fact sheet
British Columbia

Victims of police-reported violent crime in British Columbia, 2016

Victim services in British Columbia

Detailed data tables

Fact sheet British Columbia

Victims of police-reported violent crime in British Columbia, 2016

Victim services in British Columbia

Detailed data tables

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Fact sheet
British Columbia