Statistics Canada Report on Women and the Criminal Justice System

Statistics Canada yesterday published a report on Women and the Criminal Justice System that looks at violence against women in Canada as well as women's involvement in the criminal justice system as offenders.

Among the highlights:

• Since 2004, self-reported victimization rates have declined among women for physical assault, while self-reported rates of sexual assault have not changed.
• According to 2014 statistics, women reported being the victim of 1.2 million incidents of physical assault, sexual assault or robbery in the previous year. Self-reported violent victimization rates were higher among women (85 per 1,000 population) than men (67 per 1,000 population). This difference was largely attributable to higher rates of sexual assault among women.
• Females aged 12 and older accounted for about one-quarter of people accused of committing a Criminal Code offence in 2015, according to police-reported data. Although there was an overall decline in police-reported crime in Canada among adults aged 18 and older from 1998 to 2015, the decrease was more pronounced for crimes involving a male accused.
• In 2014, Aboriginal women were 2.7 times more likely to have reported experiencing violent victimization than non-Aboriginal women.
• The number of Aboriginal female victims of homicide has increased over the past several decades, while the number of non-Aboriginal female victims has declined. As a result, Aboriginal females account for an increasing proportion of female homicide victims, rising from one-tenth (9%) of all female homicide victims in 1980 to one-quarter (24%) in 2015.