Appendix A: Data sources
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The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey
The UCR Survey was developed in 1962 with the cooperation and assistance of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. UCR survey data reflect reported crime that has been substantiated through police investigation from all federal, provincial and municipal police services in Canada. There are currently two levels of detail collected by the UCR Survey:
Aggregate UCR Survey
The aggregate UCR survey includes the number of reported offences, actual offences, offences cleared by charge or cleared otherwise, persons charged (by sex and by an adult/ youth breakdown) and those not charged. It does not include victim or incident characteristics. Coverage of the UCR Survey in 2005 was at 99.9% of the caseload of all police services in Canada.
Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR2) Survey
The incident-based UCR2 survey captures detailed information on individual criminal incidents reported to police, including characteristics of victims, accused persons and incidents. Police services switch over from the aggregate to the incident based survey as their records management systems become capable of providing this level of detail.In 2007, 153 police services in all provinces and territories supplied data for the complete year to the UCR2 survey and represented approximately 94% of the population of Canada.
The coverage provided by these services in the 2007 database is distributed as follows: 41.0% from Ontario, 24.7% from Québec, 11.1% from Alberta, 8.4% from British Columbia, 3.7% from Manitoba, 3.2% from Saskatchewan, 3.0% from Nova Scotia, 2.4% from New Brunswick, 1.6% from Newfoundland and Labrador, 0.4% from Prince Edward Island, and approximately 0.1% from each of the 3 territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut).
Adult Criminal Court Survey
The purpose of the Adult Criminal Court Survey (ACCS) is to provide a national database of statistical information on the processing of cases through the adult criminal court system. The survey consists of a census of Criminal Code and other federal statute charges dealt with in adult criminal courts. The ACCS represents approximately 90% of the national adult criminal court caseload.
Adult criminal courts in ten provinces and three territories report to the Integrated Criminal Court Survey (ICCS) and the ACCS. Reporting jurisdictions include: Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. In addition, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut reported superior court data to the ICCS/ACCS. These thirteen jurisdictions represent approximately 98% of the national adult criminal court caseload.
The absence of data from some superior court jurisdictions may result in a slight under-estimation of the severity of sentences imposed across Canada. The reason for this is that some of the most serious cases, which are likely to result in the most severe sanctions, are processed in superior courts. Similarly, the absence of superior court data from certain jurisdictions may result in a slight underestimation of case elapsed times across Canada. Again, this is due to the most serious cases being processed in superior courts. More serious cases involve a defence election, may involve a preliminary inquiry, and jury selection, and therefore may require more appearances and take more time to complete. While these limitations are important, comparisons from one year to another are possible if the reporting jurisdictions used in the comparison are held constant.
The analysis in this report regarding offences in court is based on the most serious offence. When a case has more than one charge, it is necessary to decide which charge will be used to represent the case (since a case is identified by a single charge). In such multiple-charge cases, the "most serious decision" rule is applied. Decisions are ranked from the most to the least serious as follows: 1) guilty, 2) guilty of a lesser offence, 3) acquitted, 4) stay of proceeding, 5) withdrawn,dismissed and discharged 6) not criminally responsible 7) other, 8) transfer of court jurisdiction. In cases where two or more offences have resulted in the same decision (e.g., guilty), the "most serious offence" rule is applied. All charges are ranked according to an offence seriousness scale, which is based on the average length of prison sentence imposed on guilty charges between 1994/1995 and 2000/2001. If two charges are tied according to this criterion, information about the sentence type (e.g., prison, probation, and fine) is considered. If a tie still exists, the magnitude of the sentence is considered.
The most serious sentence rule applies where more than one sentence is associated with the most serious offence in a case. Sentences are ranked from most to least serious as follows: Prison, conditional sentence, probation, fine, and other (restitution, absolute or conditional discharge, suspended sentence, other).
Youth Court Survey
The Youth Court Survey (YCS) is a census of Criminal Code and other federal statute offences heard and completed in youth court for persons aged 12 to 17 years (up to the 18th birthday) at the time of the offence.
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