New Adult and Youth Court Statistics

Statistics Canada today released 2 reports:

• Youth court statistics, 2006/2007
• Adult criminal court statistics, 2006/2007

Among the major findings:

• Cases in adult criminal courts are taking longer to complete. It took an average of 8 months to dispose of a case in adult court in 2006-2007 vs. 6 months 5 years earlier. Statistics Canada explains that much of the delay may be due to the rising proportion of cases involving multiple charges.
• Almost two-thirds (65%) of adult cases received a guilty disposition in 2006/2007. In a large majority of these cases (89%), the accused had pleaded guilty. The Criminal Code traffic offences category had the highest share of cases with a finding of guilt (79%). The lowest (53%) occurred in crimes against the person.
• In 2006/2007, probation was the most frequently imposed sanction (43%) in adult cases having a guilty finding. Custody was imposed in 34% of cases, and a fine in 30%.
• Fewer young people aged 12 to 17 have been appearing before a judge since the enactment of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) in April 2003, and fewer are being sent to custody. The case load is 26% lower than in 2002/2003, the year prior to the enactment of the new legislation.
• A key objective of the YCJA was to decrease the use of custody. In 2006/2007, about 17% or 5,640 of all guilty cases resulted in a custodial sentence. This compares with 13,246 or 27% of all guilty cases in 2002/2003.