An Estimation of the Economic Impact of Violent Victimization in Canada, 2009

Introduction

Despite the recent trend of decreasing violent crime rates across Canada — both the violent crime rate and the violent crime severity index decreased from 2006 to 2010 (Brennan and Dauvergne 2011) — violent crime continues to have a major impact on the lives of Canadians. In 2009, there were 444,508 total incidents of violent crime reported by police across Canada. Self-reported data from the nationwide 2009 General Social Survey (GSS) show that there were 2,792,110 reported incidents of violent crime fitting the following criteria: non-spousal relationships between offenders and victims, adult victims only, and four crime types (assault, robbery, criminal harassment, and sexual assault and other sexual offences only). Footnote 3 The true prevalence of violent incidents across Canada exceeds this result as the criteria specified limit the estimate.

It is clear from these statistics that violent crime impacts the lives of many Canadians. The truth, as the current report will show, is that violent crime actually impacts all Canadians. It affects first and foremost the victims, and the physical and mental impacts for victims can be life-altering, if not life-threatening. It also affects the health of society more generally, redirecting vital resources away from more positive pursuits. These incident counts, while informative, do not capture the true impacts of violent crime. As a way to quantify the impacts that violent crime has on all Canadians, this report estimates the total cost, or “economic impact”, associated with victimization of five violent crimes (assault, criminal harassment, homicide, robbery, and sexual assault and other sexual offences) involving non-spousal relationships between perpetrators and victims and involving only adult victims. Every impact that can be justifiably attributed to the victimization of the criminal act is included, data permitting.

Victims suffer the most serious impacts of crime, the most significant impact for many victims being the intangible pain and suffering, and the primary victims should always remain the focal point of any discussion about criminal victimization. It is recognized, though, that everyone has a personal stake in the effort to reduce violent crime. Other individuals, businesses, and the public in general all feel the impacts of crime in one way or another. Family members may have to take on extra responsibility as the victim heals, businesses whose employees are victimized may lose production as the employee is off of work, and all taxpayers assist in paying for the criminal justice process and health and social services. It is hoped that providing an estimate of the costs of violent victimization will be useful to everyone interested in the issues surrounding criminal victimization.

Purpose

The purpose of this report is to estimate the total costs associated with victimization of five violent crimes (assault, criminal harassment, homicide, robbery, and sexual assault and other sexual offences) involving adult victims (18 and up) where there was no spousal relationship between the victim and the offender in Canada in 2009. For an estimate of the costs of violence in spousal relationships in Canada in 2009, see An Estimation of the Economic Impact of Spousal Violence in Canada, 2009 (Zhang et al. 2012).

Definitions

Cost (economic impact)
A cost, synonymous with the term economic impact in this report, Footnote 4 is defined as a monetary value derived from a tangible or intangible impact that is lost (as in the case of “pain and suffering”) or exchanged between parties where no monetary value would have been lost or exchanged between those parties in the absence of the crime. For example, “police costs”, and various “social services operating costs” are included as costs because if the crimes had not been committed there would be no transfer of money from the public to the government and non-government institutions responsible for administering these services. The resources (both human and monetary) used in preventing and responding to the crime could have been used in a more positive manner if the crime had not been perpetrated.
Victims
The term victim in this report refers to adults (18 and up) who have sustained an incident of one of the five violent crimes analyzed (assault, criminal harassment, homicide, robbery, and sexual assault and other sexual offences) where there was no spousal relationship between the offender and the victim. All court and police-based data requested from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS) meet these conditions, and appropriate conditions are set for the population-based data from the 2009 General Social Survey (AGEGR5 ≠ 1 to exclude ages 15 to 17). In addition, the term victim only refers to the “primary victim”, described above, though other parties not referred to as victims here may also be classified as “secondary victims” or “tertiary victims”.
Spousal relationships
Spousal relationships include relationships of married, common-law, separated, or divorced partners. Current and former marriage and common-law relationships are captured in the term spousal, and both heterosexual and same-sex relationships are included. Spousal relationships are not considered in this report to avoid redundancy and overlap with a previous related report, An Estimation of the Economic Impact of Spousal Violence in Canada, 2009 (Zhang et al. 2012). All records in the Incident File of the GSS (which contains the crime incident reports and from which the self-reported data in this work are derived) are non-spousal by definition. Footnote 5 Other accused-victim relationships, such as stranger, other family member, or even boyfriend/girlfriend are captured in the report.
Offender
Technically, the term offender would only be used upon conviction in a criminal court. Until conviction, the allegations have not been proven, and terms such as “alleged perpetrator” or “accused” (once charges are laid) should be used. However, for ease of reading, this report often refers to offenders in the senses of “alleged perpetrator” and “accused” as well as in the standard sense of “offender”, but the distinctions noted above must be acknowledged. There are no age restrictions on the definition of offender here, so youth as well as adult offenders are included.