Statisrics Canada Article on Prostitution Offences in Canada

The Statistics Canada publication Juristat recently published an article entitled Prostitution offences in Canada: Statistical trends that looks at police-reported prostitution-related offences in Canada, between 2009 and 2014.

It also examines homicides of sex workers, and criminal court outcomes for prostitution-related cases.

Among the highlights:

• Between 2009 and 2014, the period prior to the introduction of new legislation that made it illegal to purchase sexual services, there were 16,879 prostitution incidents reported by police in Canada. These incidents represented less than 0.1% of all crimes reported in Canada in the same time period.
• In 2014, there were 3.0 police-reported prostitution offences per 100,000 population, the lowest rate since 1982.
• The majority of prostitution offences (82%) reported between 2009 and 2014 were for communicating or attempting to communicate with a person for the purpose of engaging in or obtaining sexual services.
• Close to half (43%) of persons accused of a prostitution-related offence between 2009 and 2014 were female, compared with less than one quarter (23%) of persons accused of any offence overall during the same time period. Females accused of prostitution were much younger than males (median age of 31 versus 42).
• Repeated contact with police for prostitution-related offences was more frequent among female accused (27%) compared with male accused (3%).
• Between 1991 and 2014, there were 294 homicides of sex workers. One in three (34%) homicides of sex workers remained unsolved; a much greater proportion than for homicides that did not involve a sex worker victim (20%).
• Between 2008/2009 and 2013/2014, under one third (30%) of prostitution cases processed in criminal courts resulted in a guilty verdict; this was much lower than the proportion for criminal court cases in general (64%).