Justice

1. 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.”

2. 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.

3. 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. 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?  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?

4. What Does It Look Like? Beyond 20/20 tables Plus the General Social Survey (victimization), special topic surveys and, occasionally, Shelf Tables

5. 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.

6. So what do I need to know about it? • It helps to think the way they do. • Use Definitions, Data Sources and Methods • Read the documentation! • Browse Juristat and other CCJS publications; search The Daily; and read the data source notes! • 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) • 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 • Victimization (survey data from UCR & Homicide) • General Social Survey (victimization, cycles 3, 8, 13 and 18) • Victim Services Survey 5035

7. 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

8. 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!

9. 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!

10. 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!!!

11. 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.