Statistics Canada Article on Police Clearance Rates for Sexual Assault

Juristat, a publication produced by Statistics Canada, has published an article on Recent trends in police-reported clearance status of sexual assault and other violent crime in Canada, 2017 to 2022.

Prior to 2018, criminal incidents were recorded by police as unfounded when there was not enough corroborating evidence.

As of 2018, incidents were recorded as "founded" (the reported incidents had in fact occurred) unless there is evidence demonstrating that incidents had not taken place.

The article looks at trends following the implementation of revised coding practices which are intended to be more victim-centric.

The article found that 14% of all reported incidents of sexual assault were classified by police as unfounded in 2017, which dropped to 7% in 2022. This pattern was similar for other selected types of violent crime.

The number of incidents of sexual assault cleared by charge increased between 2017 and 2022. However, because of the increase in the number of founded and uncleared incidents of sexual assault, the proportion of incidents of sexual assault that were cleared by charge decreased from 34% to 31% during this period.