Table 4
Court decisions for Indigenous accused relative to White accused in adult criminal court, Canada, 2016/2017 to 2020/2021

Table 4
Court decisions for Indigenous accused relative to White accused in adult criminal court, Canada, 2016/2017 to 2020/2021 Table summary
The information is grouped by Characteristics (appearing as row headers), Decision , Guilty, Acquittal, Stay of proceedings and Withdrawn, dismissed or discharged, calculated using adjusted relative rate index1 units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Characteristics Decision
Guilty Acquittal Stay of proceedings Withdrawn, dismissed or discharged
adjusted relative rate index Table 4 Note 1
Note 0

true zero or a value rounded to zero

Note 1

The adjusted relative rate index (ARRI) measures the likelihood of Indigenous accused encountering a court decision relative to White accused encountering the same court decision, controlling for the severity of the most serious offence in the case. Severity is based on the crime severity weight that is used in calculating the Crime Severity Index. The ARRI is a relative measure. For example, an ARRI of 0% means that Indigenous accused have the same likelihood of encountering the same court decision as their White counterpart. Furthermore, an ARRI larger or smaller than zero means that Indigenous accused have a higher or lower likelihood of encountering the same court decision than White accused. The overall ARRI and the ARRIs by category can sometimes look quite different because the latter are averaged across both the category and the years. This can result in differences between the overall and disaggregated ARRIs, especially if the ARRI values vary substantially from year to year and between categories.

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Note 2

Sex is defined as female or male in the 2016 Census.

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Note 3

Age at date of offence. Excludes calculated age under 18 years and older than 100 years. When the date of the offence was missing, age was calculated using the case start date.

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Note 4

Sentencing is disseminated for the most serious offense in the case.

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Note 5

Prior convictions were identified as all convictions in the fiscal years prior to the case completion year back to the fiscal year 2005/2006.

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Note 6

Violent offences are defined as crimes against the person, which include criminal harassment; uttering threats; assault; sexual assault; other sexual offences; and offences in relation to sexual services, robbery, attempted murder and homicide.

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Note 7

The application of stays or withdrawals is determined by the policies in each jurisdiction. For instance, certain jurisdictions may favour the use of a stay to end court proceedings, while others may favour the use of a withdrawal.

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Notes: Only individuals who had a completed court case in the Integrated Criminal Court Survey (ICCS) and were linked to the 2016 Census of Population long-form questionnaire were retained for analysis. Calibrated weights were developed for this dataset so that the sum of these weights equal the total population of accused before the courts. Weights were calibrated to ensure consistency between the linked ICCS population and the total ICCS population in terms of key sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender and criminal history). Calibrated weights were developed independently for each fiscal year of ICCS data. Results for each year were produced using these calibrated weights. The results presented in this table are the averaged ARRIs from 2016/2017 to 2020/2021.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, Linked 2016 Census of Population long-form survey and Integrated Criminal Court Survey.
All 0 -62 72 -21
Sex Table 4 Note 2  
Female 2 -61 63 -24
Male -1 -62 75 -20
Age group (years) Table 4 Note 3  
18 to 24 0 -62 70 -21
25 to 34 1 -62 70 -22
35 to 44 2 -62 67 -23
45 to 54 1 -61 70 -23
55 and older -1 -62 77 -21
Most serious offence in the case Table 4 Note 4  
Crime against the person 9 -62 56 -28
Crime against property 6 -62 56 -27
Administration of justice 6 -63 56 -27
Other Criminal Code 6 -66 60 -30
Criminal Code traffic 4 -61 70 -33
Other federal statute -2 -67 81 -15
Number of prior convictions Table 4 Note 5  
0 0 -62 73 -21
1 to 2 1 -62 67 -22
3 to 4 2 -62 64 -23
5 or more 4 -61 59 -25
Any prior conviction for a violent offence Table 4 Note 6  
No 0 -63 76 -21
Yes 9 -63 55 -28
Province or region Table 4 Note 7  
Atlantic 1 -61 71 -23
Quebec 0 -61 79 -21
Ontario 3 -61 64 -24
Prairies 2 -60 65 -24
British Columbia and the territories 1 -62 70 -23
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