2016 Canadian Victim Services Indicators: Pilot survey evaluation and recommendations
Summary of data-related issues
Victim definition
CVSI Definition of a victim
A victim is defined as an individual who has suffered physical or emotional harm, property damage or economic loss as the result of the commission of an offence.
The following individuals will also be able to exercise their rights when a victim is deceased or incapable of acting on his or her own behalf:
- The victim's spouse or common-law partner;
- A relative or dependant of the victim; or
- Anyone who has custody of the victim, or is responsible for the care or support of the victim's dependant.
Coverage
While the PCVI FPT had agreed that the main focus was to collect information on all victims of crime, the data available to the jurisdictions differed widely and thus prevented any comparable focus. Differences in the definition of victims included in the data are related to differences in the coverage for each jurisdiction, that is, how much of the population of victims of crime are included in the available databases. Because of differences in how victim services are delivered in each jurisdiction, there may be multiple agencies providing services or data may only be captured for certain services. So, for example, some jurisdictions only have data on victims served by the government victim services program, which may be restricted to post-charge victims, with no information available for victims of crime served by other agencies. In other jurisdictions, information has been compiled from multiple data sources in an attempt to capture a full picture.
While one option appeared to be restricting data collection to the most restricted category (post-charge victims), many jurisdictions were unable to reliably identify only these victims.
The following list reflects the categories of victim currently covered in the data of various jurisdictions:
- Individuals who receive help from any victim services (all direct and secondary (family) victims of crime or trauma or emergencies such as wildfires)
- All victims of crime or behaviours that approach the criminal threshold (ex. family related abuse) includes victims who reported and some that did not report to police. For some jurisdictions (particularly those that are system-based), data includes victims who self-refer whether or not they report to police. In non-system based jurisdictions, data meeting this definition is confounded because it expands the sources of data to community based programs and may lead to more “double counting” of victims.
- Victims of a criminal behaviour only and who report to police (police referrals). This limits data to those victims in contact with the criminal justice system and is more consistent with information reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting survey.
- Victims of crime where a charge has been laid. This definition is the most restrictive and only includes information on victims where an accused was identified and sufficient evidence was present to lay a charge.
Figure 1: Definitions for the 2016 CVSI
Figure 1: Definitions for the 2016 CVSI – Text version
This is an image of a pyramid with four sections. The top section shows text that says: “Victims of crime where a charge has been laid (NL children, NS, ON, MB).”
The next section down has text that says: “Victims of crime reported to police (police referrals) (NB, SK).”
The next section down has text that says: “Victims of crime, whether or not reported to police (NL adults, PEI, QC, YK, NWT, NU).”
The bottom section says: “all victims, including victims of trauma, disasters and emergencies (AB, BC).”
Differences in counts
Beyond coverage concerns, the counts of victims were not comparable by jurisdiction for additional reasons. There are three main situations which have an impact on the counts:
- Coverage: In jurisdictions where a victim may have multiple points of contact (separate agencies) with the system, and data is collected from each of these agencies, that victim may be counted multiple times if the data is compiled from more than one source. For example, the same victim may be reported by a sexual assault or domestic violence program, by the police, and by the courts, and therefore counted each time for the same incident. In other jurisdictions with a single system-based program, or with more limited coverage, they may be counted only once.
- Database structures (file management): Differences in counting also arise from file management practices. For example, in domestic violence situations, a single file may be maintained for a victim (especially when there is a single offender) even when there are multiple incidents, charges, and court events. This victim might be counted just once, or, if the file was originally opened in a previous year, not at all. For victims of multiple incidents with multiple offenders, a separate file may be maintained for each offender.
- Treatment of secondary victims: As some secondary victims are a part of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights (CVBR), the survey collected information on secondary victims or family members of victims. Not all jurisdictions had information on secondary victims, and some had only combined information and could not provide separate counts of direct and secondary victims. However, even if information on secondary victims was available for a jurisdiction, these victims were not counted consistently. In some instances, they are counted individually, in others they are counted once per direct victim (ex. 1 family file). Sometimes, they may be counted for each household of secondary victims (ex. where there are two family households related to a victim such as separated parents). Also, some jurisdictions included all secondary victims impacted by a crime; others only included family members of victims.
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