Prostitution Offences

Question:

I was helping a researcher who's looking for "the breakdown of the prostitution offences by each offence (e.i. incidents for s.213, s.286.1 etc)".  

From this table: 
35-10-0177-01 - Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations, Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas

We can get the breakdown of the prostitution offences (classified under Total Commodification of sexual activity violations, and Total Prostitution) by types of offences. 

Next, in order to map those types of offences to criminal codes (such as s.213, s.286.1 etc), we consulted the questionnaire and the reporting guide linked from this page: http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p3Instr.pl?Function=getInstrumentList&Item_Id=55196&UL=1V&

Basically, we figured out that on the questionnaire(PDF), there is the code for "Prostitution Total" (046) as well as the more specific codes below it; and from the reporting guide (p. 86), it shows how that code is linked to criminal code (section 213 etc).  Although the codes in the stats don't align with the codes on the questionnaire, for example, bawdy house 3110 vs. 047, we can just match them up by the same description (i.e. bawdy house). 

However, there are still some critical problems -- the questions in the questionnaire don't entirely reflect the crime hierarchy of stats, for example, there's no "Total Commodification of sexual activity violations" and its breakdown on the questionnaire, and we suspect it's because the questionnaire/reporting guide on the website needs to be updated. Furthermore, since the researcher is interested in the impact of the 2014 legislation, it would be useful to get access to the questionnaires/reporting guide of different times, which are unavailable from the website.  

Sorry for this rambling email. I'd appreciate it if you can shed some light on this. 

Answer:

I’ve received the following response from subject matter:

“If your researcher hasn’t seen the tables of concordance contained in the 2019 UCR manual (attached), it could be very useful. It is a comprehensive lookup table that cross references all Criminal Code sections to their respective UCR2 violation codes.

The 3-digit UCR codes mentioned, such as ‘Prostitution Total (046)’, come for the old UCR1 Aggregate survey, which is no longer in use and has not been for a long time.

All of our current online CODR (new CANSIM) tables are based on the 4-digit UCR2 codes.”

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"... [data tables] are readily available via the website. These are customizable and downloadable. Below is the CAN/PROV/CMA table, there are also similar police service level tables that can be found on the site as well.

Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations, Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510017701”

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"[The manual] is not  available on the website, we distribute it to our partners, but also to anyone who requests it”

Uniform Crime Reporting - Recent Files

Question:
I have a researcher looking at the Uniform Crime Reporting. They are wondering if you will be releasing an update or more current data. Or should we be looking at another dataset?

Answer:
The Masterfile will be released to the RDCs at the end of July, however there is no intention of creating a PUMF.

Uniform Crime Reporting Survey PUMF

Question:
I’ve been asked if there is a PUMF for the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.  I don’t think so, as I’ve been through the EFT and Nesstar and don’t see anything, but figured I should double-check with the experts.

Answer:
You are correct – unfortunately a PUMF has not been created for the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.

UCR Monthly Numbers

Question

I have a researcher who is making use of the UCR but needs more up-to-date information. Is it possible to obtain monthly data--if so, how should she proceed?

Answer
Unfortunately, UCR data is not available monthly.

Response from subject matter: UCR is an annual release.

The 2015 data is here http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2016001/article/14642-eng.htm and was published in July. This data includes the entire 2015 year as the data reflected is annual. 2016 data will not be available until July 2017. Our 2015 RDC file has not yet been released.

Updated Products - Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR)

Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR)

The following table is now available on the DLI FTP and website:

Montreal, crime per census tract 2001 - Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey, geocoded database, 2001 and Census 2001 data by census tract, 2001

FTP: /DissFTP/dli/DLI Coll._Other prod/Uniform Crime Reporting - ucr/data/Crime per census tracts_Montréal_2001.xls
WEB: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dli-ild/data-donnees/ftp/ucr-duc-eng.htm

If you have any questions regarding this table, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you.

Geographic codes in justice files

Question

I have a researcher who would like to link the crime statistics data in the B20/20 justice files to over 500 corresponding census subdivisions. I know that the data in the justice tables is at the detachment level; however, there is a geographic code attached to each detachment which looks census-like. Is there a relationship between the geographic codes in the justice tables and census geography below the provincial level? I suspect that the answer is no but if there is a correspondence, it would make merging the researcher's census data with the crime data a whole lot easier. Any assistance with this would be very much appreciated.

Answer

You were correct, the answer is no. I asked CCJS and the UCR survey managers and analysts have told us that the first two digits are the standard province code in which the detachment resides. The other three digits are sequentially assigned and do not reflect any geographical boundaries census or otherwise. Your researcher should therefore not link these codes to census subdivisions or any other geographic level below the province.

Crime Victim Data Question

Question

A student here is working with some crime data and would like to know whether, for the UCR, for detailed offences (we're just looking at sexual assault), if it is possible to distinguish between male and female respondents. That is, we only want to know how many women were sexually assaulted, specifically in 1993 and 2004. It doesn't appear that it is possible to determine this, but we wanted to be sure. We are aware that there is the VAWS and the GSS Cycles where we can tell (and in fact, we're using this data as well).

Answer

You are correct. CCJS has confirmed that it won't be possible to use the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR) to determine how many victims of sexual assaults were women between 1993 and 2004. There is some data on victims of crime in the UCR2 Incident Based Survey (a version of the UCR that was introduced in 1988 and that operates simultaneously with the UCR Aggregate version of the survey) but there weren't enough police forces responding to the UCR2 between 1993 and 2004 for it to provide the data your student needs. The data it contains for this period is from a limited number of police forces.

(On a more general note, there is an interesting description of the UCRs design in the IMDB under
http://www.statcan.ca/cgi-bin/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=3302&lang=en&db=IMDB&dbg=f&adm=8&dis=2)

Sexual Assault Data

Question

A student needs data for the last 10 yrs, for all cases of rape reported, the day and the time of the incidence.

I've looked at Crime Statistics in Canada (2006) and am wondering if I can get this information from the incident-based microdata version of the UCR survey.

Do we have access to this version of the UCR survey through DLI ?

Answer

We have Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR) data on sexual assault offences for the last 10 years in the DLI collection but these data don't include information about the day or time of the assaults.

When I asked the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics about your request, they explained that there were changes to the Criminal Code of Canada in 1983 which removed rape and introduced a three tiered structure of sexual assault offences. So from 1983 onwards, the UCR provides data on sexual assault offences levels I, II and II. Our contact described the three levels as follows: "'Sexual Assault' offences, Level I (sexual assault - the most minor level), Level II (sexual assault with a weapon - serious injury to victim) and Level III (aggravated sexual assault - grievous injury to the victim)".

A table can be created by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics using UCR data that details the number of incidents and rate per 100 000 population of sexual assault offences (Level I, II and III) in Canada from 1996 to 2006.

The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics told me that they might be able to produce more detailed tables on sexual assault offences if you placed a custom request but this would be a fee based service as the tables don't exist as a standard product. The data in these tables would probably start in 1998, might specify if assaults occurred in the am or pm and wouldn't contain data from all police forces across Canada. But, as I mentioned above, these tables would only be available as a custom service for a fee.