Fact sheet
Quebec

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Quebec, 2016

There were 76,871 victims of violent crime and criminal traffic offences causing death or bodily harm reported by police in Quebec in 2016. This represented 928 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; 64% were aged 25 and older. Meanwhile, 12% of victims were youth aged 12 to 17 and 6% 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 (7 victims) represented 8% of all victims of homicide and other offences causing death^Note (Table 6.1).
Just over half (55%) of victims of police-reported crime in 2016 were victims of assault: 39% were victims of common assault (level 1) and 12% were victims of major assault (level 2 or 3).^Note Assault victims accounted for almost three in five (57%) of adult victims of police-reported violent crime. In comparison, assault accounted for more than two-fifths (44%) of child and youth victims (Table 6.1). Rates of assault were highest among young adults.
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), 15% 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), 13% were victims of sexual assault (almost all sexual assault level 1) and 11% were victims of sexual violations against children (Table 6.1). 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-third (36%) of police-reported victims in 2016 were victims of other violent offences including uttering threats (18%), criminal harassment (6%) and robbery (5%) (Table 6.1).
While just over half (51%) of police-reported victims were female, they represented a much larger proportion of victims of sexual offences (85%) and of some other violent offences such as criminal harassment (74%) and indecent and harassing communications (73%) (Table 6.2).
Assault was the most common police-reported offence among both male (59%) and female (51%) victims in 2016. Meanwhile, 13% of female victims were victims of sexual offences (9% sexual assault—mostly level 1—and 4% sexual violations against children). In comparison, 2% of males were victims of sexual offences (Table 6.2).
Male and female victims of police-reported sexual offences differed notably by age. Overall, among female victims of all sexual offences, 59% were either children under the age of 12 (20%) or youth aged 12 to 17 (39%). Of all female child and youth victims, 39% were victims of sexual offences: 21% were sexual assault and 19% were sexual violations against children (Table 6.3).
Compared to females, a much larger proportion (81%) of male victims of police-reported sexual offences were either children (48%) or youth (33%). Despite this, sexual offences were still less common among young male children and youth, representing 11% of victims (compared to 39% for their female counterparts). Instead, assault was the most common (56%) offence for male child and youth victims (Table 6.3).

Victim services in Quebec

The Ministry of Justice’s Crime Victims Assistance Office, also known as the Bureau d’aide aux victimes d’actes criminels (BAVAC), in Quebec, provides financial support to Crime Victim Assistance Centres (CAVAC). These centres assist victims of crime throughout their involvement in the criminal justice system, including assistance with Victim Impact Statements and referring victims to specialized services. Other specialized community-based victim services are also available to support domestic violence victims, victims of sexual assault and families of murdered or missing persons. Some of these services are funded by the Ministry of Health and Social Services. In addition, some police services also work with their local CAVAC offices to provide direct services to victims.

The information provided below reflects only data reported by the Crime Victim Assistance Centres (CAVAC).^Note

In 2016, Quebec victim services assisted 44,722 direct victims of crime, and 7,307 family members of victims.^Note
Children and youth accounted for 8% of victims assisted by the CAVAC Network.
About two-thirds (68%) of victims served were female; 32% were male.
Most direct victims who received assistance (89%) were victims of violent crime.^Note Of those victims of violent crime, just over half (51%) were victims of a physical assault, and another 21% were victims of sexual offences.^Note One-fifth (21%) of sexual offence victims were under age 18 (1,662 victims).^Note About one in ten (10%) victims served were victims of a non-violent offence.
In 2016, Quebec Crime Victim Assistance Centres assisted 1,725 victims with the preparation and completion of Victim Impact Statements.

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 6.1
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and age group of victim, Québec, 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 6.1 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 6.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 6.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 6.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 6.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 6.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 6.1 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	8	3	3	1	9	3	54	20	200	73	278	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 6.1 Note 2}	4	4	1	1	2	2	10	11	72	81	89	100
Attempted murder	4	2	2	1	7	4	44	24	128	69	189	100
Sexual offences	1,363	24	1,661	29	517	9	855	15	1,289	23	5,780	100
Sexual assault	633	16	777	19	431	11	855	21	1,289	32	4,006	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	1	6	1	6	1	6	5	29	9	53	17	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	14	18	14	18	13	17	13	17	22	29	76	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	618	16	762	20	417	11	837	22	1,258	32	3,913	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 6.1 Note 3}	730	43	884	52	86	5	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	1,774	100
Assaults	2,138	5	2,293	6	1,499	4	7,607	18	27,662	67	42,157	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	17	7	5	2	4	2	47	20	167	70	245	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	476	5	465	5	329	4	1,932	21	6,015	65	9,274	100
Assault (level 1)	1,594	5	1,804	6	1,148	4	5,429	18	19,608	66	29,710	100
Other^{Table 6.1 Note 4}	51	2	19	1	18	1	199	9	1,872	87	2,928	100
Other violent offences	779	3	1,762	7	1,208	5	4,686	18	18,338	68	27,305	100
Robbery	19	1	284	8	219	6	1,001	28	2,041	57	3,580	100
Criminal harassment	37	1	216	4	200	4	790	16	3,632	75	4,897	100
Indecent/harassing communications	2	0	11	2	10	2	58	12	409	83	495	100
Uttering threats	422	3	853	6	517	4	2,003	15	9,680	72	13,817	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	180	12	65	4	66	4	384	25	826	54	1,528	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	1	1	4	5	27	32	33	39	19	23	92	100
Other^{Table 6.1 Note 5}	118	4	329	12	169	6	417	15	1,731	63	2,896	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 6.1 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 6.1 Note 6}	0	0	0	0	1	3	6	15	33	83	40	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 6.1 Note 6}	37	3	57	4	67	5	288	22	856	66	1,311	100
Total victims	4,325	6	5,776	8	3,301	4	13,496	18	48,378	64	76,871	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 6.2
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and sex of victim, Québec, 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 6.2 Note 1}
Type of offence	number	percent^{Table 6.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 6.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 6.2 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	91	33	187	67	278	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 6.2 Note 2}	27	30	62	70	89	100
Attempted murder	64	34	125	66	189	100
Sexual offences	4,897	85	883	15	5,780	100
Sexual assault	3,492	87	514	13	4,006	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	13	76	4	24	17	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	64	84	12	16	76	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	3,415	87	498	13	3,913	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 6.2 Note 3}	1,405	79	369	21	1,774	100
Assaults	19,696	47	22,460	53	42,157	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	73	30	172	70	245	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	3,449	37	5,825	63	9,274	100
Assault (level 1)	15,479	52	14,230	48	29,710	100
Other^{Table 6.2 Note 4}	695	24	2,233	76	2,928	100
Other violent offences	13,688	50	13,617	50	27,305	100
Robbery	1,094	31	2,486	69	3,580	100
Criminal harassment	3,606	74	1,291	26	4,897	100
Indecent/harassing communications	363	73	132	27	495	100
Uttering threats	6,086	44	7,731	56	13,817	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	1,175	77	353	23	1,528	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	86	93	6	7	92	100
Other^{Table 6.2 Note 5}	1,278	44	1,618	56	2,896	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 6.2 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 6.2 Note 6}	13	33	27	68	40	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 6.2 Note 6}	594	45	717	55	1,311	100
Total victims	38,979	51	37,891	49	76,871	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 6.3
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, Québec, 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 6.3 Note 1}
	Child victims under 12 years			Youth victims 12 to 17 years			Adult victims 18 years and older			Total victims^{Table 6.3 Note 1}
	number	rate	percent^{Table 6.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 6.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 6.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 6.3 Note 1}
Female victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 6.3 Note 2}	2	0	2	3	1	3	86	3	95	91	2	100
Sexual offences	947	185	20	1,898	821	39	1,981	59	41	4,897	118	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	419	82	12	1,074	464	31	1,981	59	57	3,492	84	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 6.3 Note 3}	528	103	39	824	356	61	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	1,405	34	100
Assaults^{Table 6.3 Note 4}	800	156	4	1,656	716	9	16,998	504	87	19,696	473	100
Other violent offences^{Table 6.3 Note 5}	384	75	3	1,494	646	11	11,635	345	86	13,688	329	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 6.3 Note 6}	19	4	3	45	19	7	543	16	89	607	15	100
Total female victims	2,152	420	6	5,096	2,203	13	31,243	927	81	38,979	936	100
Male victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 6.3 Note 2}	6	1	3	9	4	5	168	5	92	187	5	100
Sexual offences	416	78	48	280	115	33	163	5	19	883	21	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	214	40	42	134	55	26	163	5	32	514	12	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 6.3 Note 3}	202	38	58	146	60	42	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	369	9	100
Assaults^{Table 6.3 Note 4}	1,338	250	6	2,136	878	10	18,271	551	84	22,460	546	100
Other violent offences^{Table 6.3 Note 5}	395	74	3	1,476	607	11	11,389	343	86	13,617	331	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 6.3 Note 6}	18	3	2	80	33	11	640	19	87	744	18	100
Total male victims	2,173	406	6	3,981	1,636	11	30,631	923	83	37,891	920	100
Total victims^{Table 6.3 Note 7}	4,325	413	6	9,077	1,912	12	61,874	925	82	76,871	928	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.

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Note

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

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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.

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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. These victim counts do not include data from the Nunavik CAVAC (Sapummijiit) and the Cree CAVAC.

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Note