Appendix B: Changes to counting rules for select offences
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Counterfeiting
The change to the way in which counterfeiting information is tabulated and presented is intended to correct a disconnect between the way counterfeiting data are currently being collected and the mandate of the UCR Survey, which is to collect data on those crimes reported to the police. For the past few years the UCR Survey has accepted data related to counterfeiting not just directly from police services, but also from other sources including the RCMP's Bureau of Counterfeiting and Document Examination. This Bureau is a laboratory associated with the RCMP but is not itself a police service, nor does it undertake enforcement activities.
A change in process—by which the Bank of Canada could submit suspected counterfeit bills directly to the Bureau without police agency involvement—led to concerns that without supplementary information the UCR Survey may under-count the number of counterfeiting incidents in Canada. In order to address this, a change was made to the UCR survey in order to allow additional incidents of counterfeiting to be reported to the CCJS directly from the RCMP Bureau.
The result of this change was a significant increase in the number of counterfeiting incidents. On average, counterfeiting counts at the national level prior to the change were around 12,000 incidents per year. After the change, counts ranged from a low of 80,000 to a high of 200,000 between 2002 and 2007. Counterfeiting became one of the highest-volume offences in the UCR survey. As the volume of counterfeiting can fluctuate quite a bit from year-to-year, this offence began to have a significant impact on the trend of overall crime rates from 2002 to 2007.
In recent years, the CCJS has been involved in further consultation with police services which has brought to light a disconnect between the way in which counterfeiting is currently being counted and the mandate of the UCR Survey. Ultimately, counterfeiting detected by merchants or banking institutions after a financial transaction had taken place without any direct involvement by a police agency is outside the scope of the UCR Survey- which is to collect data on crimes reported to and substantiated by the police.
Further, in many incidents, counterfeit bills are passed unwittingly by individuals. It is actually the making of counterfeit money or the possession and/or passing of a counterfeit bill or coin with knowledge that it is not genuine which constitutes a criminal or illegal act under the Criminal Code. Passing a counterfeit bill without knowing it is counterfeit is not really a crime and so it should not be counted by the UCR Survey.
Based on these two factors it was decided that the UCR Survey would only count counterfeiting incidents submitted directly by police services and, more specifically, only those incidents where an accused person was identified. This would ensure that counterfeiting bills detected by financial institutions and those passed unwittingly by individuals would not be included in crime counts.
The result of this change was a large decrease in the number of counterfeiting incidents, and overall crime counts, over the past 10 years (see Table 8). On average the number of counterfeiting incidents dropped by about 97% in the years to which the adjustments were applied, from 1998 to 2007. This also has had an impact on the overall crime rate during this same period, by lowering it from what was originally published (see Section 3.1 for a brief analysis of the impact of this and other changes on crime trends).
Robbery
Robbery is the second offence that has undergone a change in the way it is counted in the UCR Survey. In the past, robbery offences were counted differently than other violent crimes. While all other violent crimes are counted according to the number of victims involved regardless of the number of distinct incidents that had occurred, robbery offences were counted according to the number of incidents that had taken place. For instance, if three people were assaulted at the same time and place by the same perpetrator, that would be counted as three assaults. However, if three people were robbed at the same time and place by the same perpetrator, that would be counted as only one robbery.
The decision to count robbery this way dates back to the origins of the survey in the 1960s and was based on the knowledge that individuals were not always the intended victim in a robbery, which could cause some confusion in terms of what police services should be counting. For instance, a bank or retail store could be robbed and regardless of the number of employees or customers present, if no cash or personal belongings were taken directly from them, they had not actually been victims of the robbery. The original aggregate version of the UCR Survey could not ensure that everyone present during these types of incidents was not being counted individually, which would artificially inflate the number of robberies. As a result, the decision was made to count robberies based on the number of distinct incidents reported by police, rather than the number of victims present.
With the introduction of the UCR2 Survey, it is now possible to distinguish between cases in which multiple victims were actually robbed, and cases in which a number of people were simply present when an establishment was robbed. As a result, robberies will now be counted like all other violent crimes, with each victim counting as one robbery. In the case of a location being robbed, only one incident will be counted.
The change in the way robbery is counted has a notable impact on the volume of robberies over the past 10 years. Between 1998 and 2007 robbery counts will now be approximately 12% higher each year than was originally published. In turn, the count of overall violent crime will now be about 1% higher each of those years than what was originally published (Table 8), as robbery accounts for approximately 1 in 10 violent crimes.
Beyond the offence of robbery, it should be noted that there are also a few, relatively new, violations for which a similar change in counting also applies - most notably, uttering threats and criminal harassment. Under the original version of the UCR Survey, these offences fell within the general category of "Other Criminal Code"offences which only allowed for counts of the number of incidents reported by police. Appendix C of this report describes how certain offences are now being included in the category of "offences against the person" rather than "Other Criminal Code" offences. The impact of the change in counting for these offences is much less than for robbery, resulting in a 6% increase in overall counts to this category each year over the same 10-year time period from 1998 to 2007.
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