Fact sheet
Ontario

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Ontario, 2016

There were 101,260 victims of violent crime and criminal traffic offences causing death or bodily harm reported by police in Ontario in 2016. This represented 727 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; 63% 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 youth aged 16 to 17 and young adults aged 18 to 24. Children and youth (19 victims) represented 8% of all victims of homicide and other offences causing death^Note (Table 7.1).
Almost two-thirds (63%) of victims of police-reported crime in 2016 were victims of assault: 44% were victims of common assault (level 1) and 14% were victims of major assault (level 2 or 3).^Note Assault victims accounted for almost two-thirds (65%) of adult victims of police-reported violent crime. In comparison, assault accounted for almost half (48%) of child and youth victims (Table 7.1). 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), 17% were victims of sexual assault (almost all sexual assault level 1) and another 15% 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 8% were victims of sexual violations against children (Table 7.1). 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 (28%) of police-reported victims in 2016 were victims of other violent offences including uttering threats (11%), robbery (7%) and criminal harassment (5%) (Table 7.1).
While just over half (52%) 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 (77%) and indecent and harassing communications (70%). (Table 7.2).
Assault was the most common police-reported offence among both male (68%) and female (57%) victims in 2016. Meanwhile, 15% of female victims were victims of sexual offences (13% sexual assault—mostly level 1—and 3% sexual violations against children). In comparison, 2% of males were victims of sexual offences (Table 7.2).
Male and female victims of police-reported sexual offences differed notably by age. Overall, among female victims of all sexual offences, 46% were either children under the age of 12 (14%) or youth aged 12 to 17 (32%). Of all female child and youth victims, 40% were victims of sexual offences: 24% were sexual assault and 16% were sexual violations against children (Table 7.3).
Compared to females, a much larger proportion (67%) of male victims of police-reported sexual offences were either children (37%) or youth (29%). Despite this, sexual offences were still less common among young male children and youth, representing 9% of victims (compared to 40% for their female counterparts). Instead, assault was the most common (59%) offence for male child and youth victims (Table 7.3).

Victim services in Ontario

In Ontario, victims receive assistance from a wide range of programs. The Ministry of the Attorney General’s Ontario Victim Services, part of the Victims and Vulnerable Persons Division, funds and provides services to victims/survivors of crime through community-based agencies such as the Victim Crisis Assistance Ontario Program,^Note Victim Quick Response Program,^Note Sexual Assault Centres and the Victim Support Line.^Note Furthermore, Ontario Victim Services directly administers several programs including the Victim/Witness Assistance Program (V/WAP). These programs, provided by Ontario Victim Services and other funded agencies,^Note give direct support to victims and their families and may provide specialized services to specific populations such as victims/survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, child abuse, hate crime, elder abuse and families of homicide victims, as well as victims with disabilities, Francophone victims and their families and Indigenous victims and their families.

The information provided below only reflects data from the Ministry of the Attorney General’s V/WAP.^Note V/WAP supports and assists victims of crime throughout their involvement in the criminal justice process. This data represents instances where a charge has been laid, and in turn, the victim is involved in the criminal justice process.^Note^Note It does not include data about victims who may have received assistance from police, other Ontario Victim Service programs, or from other community-based agencies.

In 2016, V/WAP assisted 34,697 new direct victims of crime, and 773 family members of victims.^Note
Children and youth accounted for 9% of victims assisted by V/WAP.^Note
Over three-quarters (76%) of V/WAP’s clients were female. In addition, 37 victims reported in the data self-identified as transgendered.
Most victims who received assistance from V/WAP (94%) were victims of violent crime. About one in twenty (5%) victims served were victims of a non-violent offence.
In 2016, V/WAP assisted with the completion and submission of 2,494 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 7.1
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and age group of victim, Ontario, 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 7.1 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 7.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 7.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 7.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 7.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 7.1 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 7.1 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	10	2	11	2	18	4	103	21	347	71	497	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 7.1 Note 2}	7	3	6	3	6	3	46	20	167	72	238	100
Attempted murder	3	1	5	2	12	5	57	22	180	70	259	100
Sexual offences	1,527	17	2,028	22	874	10	1,875	21	2,840	31	9,204	100
Sexual assault	814	11	1,114	15	785	11	1,875	25	2,840	38	7,485	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	1	3	2	6	1	3	10	29	20	59	35	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	10	7	14	10	10	7	30	21	80	56	144	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	803	11	1,098	15	774	11	1,835	25	2,740	38	7,306	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 7.1 Note 3}	713	42	914	53	89	5	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	1,719	100
Assaults	2,439	4	3,306	5	2,682	4	12,000	19	41,847	67	63,295	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	17	2	15	1	48	5	274	26	689	66	1,047	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	531	4	620	5	631	5	2,641	20	8,509	66	12,991	100
Assault (level 1)	1,778	4	2,630	6	1,952	4	8,694	19	29,535	66	44,966	100
Other^{Table 7.1 Note 4}	113	3	41	1	51	1	391	11	3,114	84	4,291	100
Other violent offences	768	3	2,125	8	1,787	6	5,521	20	17,412	63	27,879	100
Robbery	61	1	853	12	776	11	2,015	27	3,659	50	7,393	100
Criminal harassment	56	1	225	4	215	4	908	18	3,624	72	5,059	100
Indecent/harassing communications	23	2	110	7	50	3	254	17	1,091	71	1,540	100
Uttering threats	439	4	729	7	539	5	1,566	14	7,782	70	11,241	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	85	8	28	3	57	5	321	30	576	54	1,071	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	0	0	27	15	37	21	74	42	38	22	176	100
Other^{Table 7.1 Note 5}	104	7	153	11	113	8	383	27	642	46	1,399	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 7.1 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 7.1 Note 6}	1	2	1	2	2	4	10	18	41	75	57	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 7.1 Note 6}	11	3	19	6	17	5	86	26	193	59	328	100
Total victims	4,756	5	7,490	7	5,380	5	19,595	20	62,680	63	101,260	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 7.2
Victims of police-reported violent crime and traffic violations causing death or bodily harm, by type of offence and sex of victim, Ontario, 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 7.2 Note 1}
Type of offence	number	percent^{Table 7.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 7.2 Note 1}	number	percent^{Table 7.2 Note 1}
Violent Criminal Code offences
Violations causing death and attempted murder	123	25	369	75	497	100
Homicide and other offences causing death^{Table 7.2 Note 2}	69	29	168	71	238	100
Attempted murder	54	21	201	79	259	100
Sexual offences	8,029	87	1,163	13	9,204	100
Sexual assault	6,593	88	883	12	7,485	100
Sexual assault (level 3)—aggravated	28	82	6	18	35	100
Sexual assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	114	79	30	21	144	100
Sexual assault (level 1)	6,451	88	847	12	7,306	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 7.2 Note 3}	1,436	84	280	16	1,719	100
Assaults	30,196	48	32,935	52	63,295	100
Assault (level 3)—aggravated	278	27	769	73	1,047	100
Assault (level 2)—weapon or causing bodily harm	5,261	41	7,707	59	12,991	100
Assault (level 1)	23,771	53	21,089	47	44,966	100
Other^{Table 7.2 Note 4}	886	21	3,370	79	4,291	100
Other violent offences	14,023	50	13,814	50	27,879	100
Robbery	1,865	25	5,524	75	7,393	100
Criminal harassment	3,886	77	1,170	23	5,059	100
Indecent/harassing communications	1,078	70	460	30	1,540	100
Uttering threats	5,305	47	5,909	53	11,241	100
Kidnapping, forcible confinement, abduction or hostage taking	889	83	179	17	1,071	100
Trafficking in persons and prostitution	173	98	3	2	176	100
Other^{Table 7.2 Note 5}	827	59	569	41	1,399	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 7.2 Note 6}
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing death^{Table 7.2 Note 6}	25	45	31	55	57	100
Impaired driving and other traffic violations causing bodily harm^{Table 7.2 Note 6}	135	42	189	58	328	100
Total victims	52,531	52	48,501	48	101,260	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 7.3
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, Ontario, 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 7.3 Note 1}
	Child victims under 12 years			Youth victims 12 to 17 years			Adult victims 18 years and older			Total victims^{Table 7.3 Note 1}
	number	rate	percent^{Table 7.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 7.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 7.3 Note 1}	number	rate	percent^{Table 7.3 Note 1}
Female victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 7.3 Note 2}	5	1	4	9	2	8	104	2	88	123	2	100
Sexual offences	1,093	127	14	2,559	574	32	4,322	76	54	8,029	113	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	536	62	8	1,682	377	26	4,322	76	66	6,593	93	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 7.3 Note 3}	557	65	39	877	197	61	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	1,436	20	100
Assaults^{Table 7.3 Note 4}	855	99	3	2,591	581	9	26,396	463	88	30,196	426	100
Other violent offences^{Table 7.3 Note 5}	351	41	3	1,634	366	12	11,933	209	86	14,023	198	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 7.3 Note 6}	4	0	3	24	5	15	129	2	82	160	2	100
Total female victims	2,308	268	4	6,817	1,529	13	42,884	752	82	52,531	741	100
Male victims
Violations causing death and attempted murder^{Table 7.3 Note 2}	5	1	1	18	4	5	345	6	94	369	5	100
Sexual offences	432	48	37	341	72	29	385	7	33	1,163	17	100
Sexual assault (level 1, 2 and 3)	277	31	32	217	46	25	385	7	44	883	13	100
Sexual violations against children^{Table 7.3 Note 3}	155	17	56	124	26	44	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	Note ...: not applicable	280	4	100
Assaults^{Table 7.3 Note 4}	1,547	171	5	3,386	718	10	27,352	503	85	32,935	481	100
Other violent offences^{Table 7.3 Note 5}	406	45	3	2,274	482	17	10,978	202	80	13,814	202	100
Criminal Code traffic violations causing death or bodily harm^{Table 7.3 Note 6}	6	1	3	15	3	7	198	4	90	220	3	100
Total male victims	2,396	265	5	6,034	1,279	13	39,258	722	82	48,501	708	100
Total victims^{Table 7.3 Note 7}	4,756	269	5	12,870	1,403	13	82,275	739	82	101,260	727	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

Community-based service that offers assistance to victims in the immediate aftermath of a crime.

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Note

Service accessed through community-based agencies or police-based services, and is administered by Ontario Victim Services.

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Note

The Victim Support Line is a 1-800 number that enables victims to find information and services available in their community, as well as register to receive notifications about an offender’s status.

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Note

Ontario delivers additional programs to serve distinct victim needs including, but not limited to, Specialized Legal Services for Assaulted Women, child programs (Child Victim Witness Program and the Internet Child Exploitation Counselling Program), Support Services for Male Survivors of Sexual Assault and the Family Court Support Worker Program.

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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.

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Note

In cases where there is insufficient evidence for police to lay a charge, a victim may lay a private complaint and may then be eligible to receive assistance from the Victim/Witness Assistance Program (V/WAP).

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Note

Victims involved in multiple separate crimes may, or may not, be counted more than once depending on various factors including, but not limited to, whether it is the same offender and whether the offences are related.

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Note

V/WAP also assisted 2,619 witnesses of crime.

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Note

Child and youth victims and witnesses assisted by V/WAP were under 18 years old.

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Date modified:: 2018-05-30

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Fact sheet
Ontario

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Ontario, 2016

Victim services in Ontario

Detailed data tables

Fact sheet Ontario

Victims of police-reported violent crime in Ontario, 2016

Victim services in Ontario

Detailed data tables

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Fact sheet
Ontario