Fact sheet
Nova Scotia

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Nova Scotia, 2016

There were 8,654 victims of violent crime and criminal traffic offences causing death or bodily harm reported by police in Nova Scotia in 2016. This represented 911 victims per 100,000 population, below the overall national rate (951) (Table A).
Most (82%) victims of police-reported crime were adults aged 18 and older; 62% were aged 25 and older. Meanwhile, 13% 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 young adults aged 18 to 24 and youth aged 16 to 17 (Table 4.1).
Two-thirds (66%) of victims of police-reported crime in 2016 were victims of assault: 49% were victims of common assault (level 1) and 13% were victims of major assault (level 2 or 3).^Note Assault victims accounted for more than two-thirds (69%) of adult victims of police-reported violent crime. In comparison, assault accounted for more than half (52%) of child and youth victims (Table 4.1). Rates of assault were highest among young adults.
Overall, 9% 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), 25% 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), 16% were victims of sexual assault (all sexual assault level 1) and 9% were victims of sexual violations against children (Table 4.1). 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.
About one-quarter (24%) of police-reported victims in 2016 were victims of other violent offences including uttering threats (15%) (Table 4.1).
While just over half (54%) of police-reported victims were female, they represented a much larger proportion of victims of sexual offences (87%) and of some other violent offences such as criminal harassment (79%) and indecent and harassing communications (74%) (Table 4.2).
Assault was the most common police-reported offence among both male (73%) and female (59%) victims in 2016. Meanwhile, 15% of female victims were victims of sexual offences (12% sexual assault—mostly level 1—and 3% sexual violations against children). In comparison, 3% of males were victims of sexual offences (Table 4.2).
Male and female victims of police-reported sexual offences differed notably by age. Overall, among female victims of all sexual offences, 53% were either children under the age of 12 (19%) or youth aged 12 to 17 (34%). Of all female child and youth victims, 41% were victims of sexual offences: 24% were sexual assault and 17% were sexual violations against children (Table 4.3).
Compared to females, a much larger proportion (76%) of male victims of police-reported sexual offences were either children (41%) or youth (36%). Despite this, sexual offences were still less common among young male child and youth victims, representing 13% of victims (compared to 41% for their female counterparts). Instead, assault was the most common (70%) offence for male child and youth victims (Table 4.3).

Victim services in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia’s Department of Justice Victim Services Program provides a range of direct services to victims of crime including a Provincial Victim Services Program, Criminal Injuries Counselling Program, Child Victim/Witness Program and Victim Impact Statement Program. In addition, the Halifax Regional Police Service and select Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachments in Nova Scotia offer police-based victim services programs. There are also specialized community-based services such as sexual assault centres, and agencies that focus on specific types of victims including children and youth, Indigenous victims and family members of victims.

The information provided below reflects data from the Nova Scotia Victim Services Program for direct and secondary victims who have a case where a charge has been laid, and in turn, are involved in the criminal justice system.^Note^Note

In 2016, Nova Scotia Victim Services assisted 5,600 direct victims of crime and their families.^Note
Children and youth accounted for 18% of victims assisted by the program.^Note
Two thirds (67%) of victims served were female; 33% were male.
Most victims who received assistance (76%) were victims of violent crime.^Note Just over half of victims assisted (52%) were victims of a physical assault, and another 6% were victims of sexual assault. Less than half (45%) of sexual assault victims were under age 19 (149 victims). Another 166 individuals were victims of specific sexual violations against children.^Note Almost one-quarter (24%) of victims served were victims of a non-violent offence. Another 34 individuals who received assistance were victims of traffic offences causing death or bodily harm.
In 2016, Nova Scotia Victim Services assisted 291 with the preparation of Victim Impact Statements. In total, 570 Victim Impact Statements and Community Impact Statements were filed with the courts.

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 4.1
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and age group of victim, Nova Scotia, 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 4.1 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 4.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 4.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 4.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 4.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 4.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 4.1 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	1	2	0	0	2	5	12	29	27	64	42	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 4.1 Note 2}	0	0	0	0	1	6	6	38	9	56	16	100
Attempted murder	1	4	0	0	1	4	6	23	18	69	26	100
Sexual offences	173	22	201	25	73	9	146	18	205	26	798	100
Sexual assault	104	17	104	17	68	11	146	23	205	33	627	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	1	25	0	0	0	0	1	25	2	50	4	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	6	100	6	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	103	17	104	17	68	11	145	24	197	32	617	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 4.1 Note 3}	69	40	97	57	5	3	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	171	100
Assaults	200	4	326	6	264	5	1,166	21	3,721	66	5,692	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	4	5	4	5	1	1	25	29	52	60	86	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	29	3	40	4	43	4	239	23	693	66	1,047	100
Assault (level 1)	166	4	279	7	218	5	871	21	2,658	63	4,199	100
Other^{Table 4.1 Note 4}	1	0	3	1	2	1	31	9	318	90	360	100
Other violent offences	33	2	122	6	114	5	458	22	1,351	65	2,081	100
Robbery	0	0	11	6	4	2	60	31	117	61	192	100
Criminal harassment	0	0	4	2	9	5	43	25	117	68	173	100
Indecent/harassing communications	1	1	10	5	10	5	27	14	142	75	190	100
Uttering threats	21	2	73	6	64	5	254	20	859	68	1,274	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	6	6	0	0	4	4	42	40	53	50	105	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	0	0	4	17	14	61	1	4	4	17	23	100
Other^{Table 4.1 Note 5}	5	4	20	16	9	7	31	25	59	48	124	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 4.1 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 4.1 Note 6}	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	100	1	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 4.1 Note 6}	1	3	1	3	1	3	9	23	28	70	40	100
Total victims	408	5	650	8	454	5	1,791	21	5,333	62	8,654	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 4.2
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and sex of victim, Nova Scotia, 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 4.2 Note 1}
Type of offence	number	percent^{Table 4.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 4.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 4.2 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	7	17	35	83	42	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 4.2 Note 2}	4	25	12	75	16	100
Attempted murder	3	12	23	88	26	100
Sexual offences	689	87	106	13	798	100
Sexual assault	537	86	88	14	627	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	3	75	1	25	4	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	6	100	0	0	6	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	528	86	87	14	617	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 4.2 Note 3}	152	89	18	11	171	100
Assaults	2,736	48	2,915	52	5,692	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	21	25	63	75	86	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	441	42	603	58	1,047	100
Assault (level 1)	2,214	53	1,964	47	4,199	100
Other^{Table 4.2 Note 4}	60	17	285	83	360	100
Other violent offences	1,163	56	909	44	2,081	100
Robbery	70	36	122	64	192	100
Criminal harassment	137	79	36	21	173	100
Indecent/harassing communications	140	74	50	26	190	100
Uttering threats	605	48	661	52	1,274	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	91	87	14	13	105	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	22	100	0	0	23	100
Other^{Table 4.2 Note 5}	98	79	26	21	124	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 4.2 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 4.2 Note 6}	1	100	0	0	1	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 4.2 Note 6}	22	55	18	45	40	100
Total victims	4,618	54	3,983	46	8,654	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 4.3
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, Nova Scotia, 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 4.3 Note 1}
	Child victims under 12 years			Youth victims 12 to 17 years			Adult victims 18 years and older			Total victims^{Table 4.3 Note 1}
	number	rate	percent^{Table 4.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 4.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 4.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 4.3 Note 1}
Female victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 4.3 Note 2}	1	2	14	1	4	14	5	1	71	7	1	100
Sexual offences	129	251	19	234	839	34	326	82	47	689	142	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	67	130	12	144	516	27	326	82	61	537	111	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 4.3 Note 3}	62	120	41	90	323	59	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	152	31	100
Assaults^{Table 4.3 Note 4}	79	154	3	267	957	10	2,385	599	87	2,736	565	100
Other violent offences^{Table 4.3 Note 5}	15	29	1	153	548	13	994	250	86	1,163	240	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 4.3 Note 6}	0	0	0	1	4	4	22	6	96	23	5	100
Total female victims	224	435	5	656	2,351	14	3,732	937	81	4,618	954	100
Male victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 4.3 Note 2}	0	0	0	1	3	3	34	9	97	35	8	100
Sexual offences	43	78	41	38	129	36	25	7	24	106	23	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	36	66	41	27	92	31	25	7	28	88	19	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 4.3 Note 3}	7	13	39	11	37	61	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	18	4	100
Assaults^{Table 4.3 Note 4}	119	217	4	320	1,090	11	2,468	651	85	2,915	626	100
Other violent offences^{Table 4.3 Note 5}	18	33	2	82	279	9	807	213	89	909	195	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 4.3 Note 6}	1	2	6	1	3	6	16	4	89	18	4	100
Total male victims	181	329	5	442	1,505	11	3,350	884	84	3,983	856	100
Total victims^{Table 4.3 Note 7}	408	383	5	1,104	1,928	13	7,124	917	82	8,654	911	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

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

Includes some victims, under special circumstances, that receive limited services even though a charge has not been laid. However, information on victims where a charge has not been laid and who only received services from a community-based program are not included.

Return to note referrer

Note

Counts refer to newly opened cases or referrals in the reference year. Information includes both direct and secondary victims. Family members are counted once per household unless they require separate services.

Return to note referrer

Note

Children and youth are defined as aged 18 or under.

Return to note referrer

Note

Information includes both direct and secondary victims.

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
Nova Scotia

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Nova Scotia, 2016

Victim services in Nova Scotia

Detailed data tables

Fact sheet Nova Scotia

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Nova Scotia, 2016

Victim services in Nova Scotia

Detailed data tables

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Fact sheet
Nova Scotia