What’s the Scoop on…
Justice
“Canada's criminal justice system is a complex network of
independent but procedurally connected police, prosecutors,
courts, correctional agencies, and parole boards.
Federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal agencies and
organizations all play a part, but no agency or jurisdiction has
control or ownership of the entire system.”
What is “it”?
As a DLI Product Highlight, we are referring to
DLI Products available via STC’s Canadian
Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS)
The mandate of the CCJS is to describe the substantive, procedural and
administrative aspects of the federal, provincial and territorial justice systems
through the presentation of useful data, generally statistics.
The Centre takes direction from the Justice Information Committee of deputy
ministers responsible for justice. The CCJS annually collects and analyses a wide
spectrum of justice data.
At the request of the Committee, the Centre has undertaken larger studies on
topics such as organized crime, hate crimes, offender profiles, and criminal
recidivism.
When would I use it?
I have a feeling that this is not possible to get, but I have a
student who wants to research women as murder victims
and get data on who they were killed by the attacker’s
gender and relationship to the victim.
I have a student looking for ‘the number of homicides caused
by illegal vs. legal guns in Canada up to 2005.’ I don’t see a
product that includes this for registered or unregistered guns
I was able to download young offender statistics from the ftp
for the years 1991 to 2007. I’m looking for any young offender
statistics from 1984 to1991 (even if they are not comparable
to the 1991 to 2007 young offender statistics). Specifically
I’m looking for sentencing patterns, gender/age distribution,
comparison of violent crime--anything that shows how the
administration has dealt with young offenders.
I have a researcher looking for any available crime data for a
census tract in Prince George (actually, he’s looking for the
data for a neighbourhood, but this Census Tract comes
pretty close to covering it). I don’t think we have access to
anything at that geography, but I thought I’d better check to
be sure. If not, are custom tabulations possible?
How many prosecutions have there been
(over some defined period like a year or a
five year period) for violating the Meat
Inspection Act or regs? The more specific
information I am interested in is prosecution
“All animals shall be slaughtered in a
humane manner. 1996, c. 6, s. 16. Has
anyone *ever* been prosecuted for
violating this?
What Does It Look Like?
Beyond 20/20 tables
Plus the General Social Survey
(victimization), special topic
surveys and, occasionally, Shelf
Tables
What do I need to know about it?
It is complicated.
Much more than this
chart suggests
Each department and
agency manages
activities that can—and
do-- generate data and
statistics.
Negotiations on common
definitions and collection
instruments had to be
done with each
component.
So what do I need to know about it?
•
Policing
–
–
–
–
•
Aggregate Uniform Crime Reporting Survey 3302
Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey 3302
Homicide Survey 3315
Police Administration/Police Resources Survey 3301
Criminal courts (adult and youth)
•Use Definitions, Data
Sources and Methods
– Adult Court Survey 3312
– Youth Court Survey 3309
– Legal Aid Survey 3308
•
Corrections (adult and youth)
–
–
–
–
Adult Correctional Services Survey 3306
Youth Custody and Community Services Survey 3323
Integrated Correctional Services Survey
Key indicator reports from two distinct surveys 3313
And
•
Family Law
– Civil Court Survey 5052
– Survey of Maintenance Enforcement Programs 3324
•
It helps to think
the way they do.
Victimization (survey data from UCR & Homicide)
– General Social Survey (victimization, cycles 3, 8, 13 and 18)
– Victim Services Survey 5035
• Read the
documentation!
•Browse Juristat and
other CCJS publications;
search The Daily; and
read the data source
notes!
So what do I need to know about it?
• It is all about definitions:
– UCR is the Aggregate Uniform Crime Report
– UCR2 is the Incident-Based Uniform Crime Report
• A change in law, or in enforcement, means a
“burp” in the comparability of data
• Knowing what types of crimes are in the
Criminal Code helps
So what do I need to know about it?
There are always new developments…
• There were major changes in the release of 2008 crime data:
•new violations were added;
•new format of violent and non-violent category of crime as 3 categories were compressed into two;
•counterfeiting and robbery were revamped; and
•there is now have a crime severity index
• The old aggregate data (1997 to 1977) is available upon request while the new
'Incident-based (aggregate format) violations' tables start in 1998
• There is progress with the civil courts data - family component (ask Marie-Claire
about shelf tables)
• The Integrated Criminal Courts data (combination of adult and youth courts),
provides a new person case definition
• In July 2010, 2 years worth of courts data (2007-08 and 2008-09) will be
released—watch for it!
How do I use it?
• Use the DLI web site
• Use the DLI ftp site
• If you are a member, download and view files
in Equinox (formerly IDLS), SDA, NESSTAR…
• CCJS is investigating Real Time Remote Access
through RDCs
• And check how to cite CCJS tables!
Where do I get more information?
• Mimi Gauthier’s presentation at ACCOLEDS
2006 in Training Repository is great!
• Check the DIGRS list for commonly asked
questions on crime and justice
• ASK THE DLI LIST!!!
With Enormous Thanks
to Mimi Gauthier
and the Canadian Centre for
Justice Statistics
And with all the best to Mimi on her retirement at the end of the year.