Table 3
Charge laid in cases linked to police-reported homicides by most serious court decision, gender-related status, criminal courts, Canada, 2009/2010 to 2020/2021


Table 3
Charge laid in cases linked to police-reported homicides by most serious court decision, gender-related status, criminal courts, Canada, 2009/2010 to 2020/2021
Table summary
This table displays the results of Charge laid in cases linked to police-reported homicides by most serious court decision. The information is grouped by Offence - most serious decision (appearing as row headers), Gender-related homicides of women and girls, Non-gender-related homicides of women and girls and Homicide of men and boys, calculated using number, percent and percent guilty units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Offence - most serious decisionTable 3 Note 1 Gender-related homicide of women and girlsTable 3 Note 2 Non-gender-related homicide of women and girlsTable 3 Note 3 Homicide of men and boysTable 3 Note 4
number percent percent guilty number percent percent guilty number percent percent guilty
Homicide 355 80.7 61.1 209 78.6 50.7 1,844 76.3 48.8
First or second degree murder 265 60.2 51.7 125 47.0 36.0 1,051 43.5 24.7
Manslaughter 90 20.5 88.9 82 30.8 72.0 792 32.8 80.7
Infanticide 0 0.0 Note ...: not applicable 2 0.8 100.0 1 0.0 100.0
Attempted murder or other violation causing death 16 3.6 43.8 5 1.9 40.0 56 2.3 48.2
Aggravated assault 10 2.3 10.0 8 3.0 50.0 89 3.7 23.6
Sexual offenceTable 3 Note 5 1 0.2 100.0 0 0.0 Note ...: not applicable 0 0.0 Note ...: not applicable
Other violent crimeTable 3 Note 6 19 4.3 52.6 14 5.3 42.9 145 6.0 53.1
Property crime 5 1.1 60.0 7 2.6 57.1 45 1.9 64.4
Total, Other Criminal Code offences 29 6.6 34.5 19 7.1 52.6 180 7.4 65.0
Breach of probation 6 1.4 50.0 3 1.1 0.0 46 1.9 60.9
Failure to comply with order 7 1.6 57.1 5 1.9 60.0 41 1.7 58.5
Possession of weapons 1 0.2 0.0 3 1.1 33.3 23 1.0 47.8
Other Criminal Code offence 15 3.4 20.0 8 3.0 75.0 70 2.9 77.1
Other violation 5 1.1 80.0 4 1.5 50.0 59 2.4 64.4
Total 440 100.0 57.5 266 100.0 50.4 2,418 100.0 50.0
... not applicable
0 true zero or a value rounded to zero
Note 1

Each case is represented by a single charge, otherwise known as the "most serious decision" (MSD). The MSD is determined by type of court decision, ranked as follows: (1) guilty, (2) guilty of a lesser offence, (3) acquitted, (4) stay of proceedings, (5) withdrawn, dismissed or discharged, (6) not criminally responsible, (7) other and (8) transfer out of court jurisdiction. Criminal Code sanctions are considered when two or more charges result in the same MSD (e.g., guilty), where the more serious offence is reported. The listed offences are the most serious conviction if there was a finding of guilt for one or more charges, but also represent the most serious offence if there was no conviction for any of the charges in the case.

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Note 2

Gender-related homicide cases are solved homicides committed by at least one male accused who killed at least one female victim who was an intimate partner or family member of the accused, who was sexually assaulted during the killing, or who was identified by police as a sex worker.

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Note 3

Non-gender-related homicides of women and girls require that no gender-related criteria are present in the case, but involve at least one female victim.

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Note 4

Homicide cases of men and boys require that no female victims were killed in the same incident.

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Note 5

Includes sexual assault level 1, sexual assault level 2 (with a weapon or causing bodily harm) and sexual assault level 3 (aggravated sexual assault). Also includes other sexual violations (e.g., sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, sexual exploitation, corruption of morals).

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Note 6

Includes all other violent violations not otherwise listed.

Return to note 6 referrer

Note: Victims and accused persons for whom gender was reported as unknown by police are excluded from this table. Represents all completed cases successfully linked to a homicide reported by police in Canada between 2009 and 2021. Incidents may not have linked to courts data for multiple reasons, including survey coverage and time required to complete a case. See "Data sources and methodology" for more details about the linkage and methodology.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, Homicide Survey and Integrated Criminal Courts Survey linked file.
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