Evidence of meeting #13 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was statistics.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
So you would expect to see some reduction in the statistics.
12:05 p.m.
Prof. John Martin
Yes.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Okay. Maybe I'll ask it in the next round, if we have another round. Thank you.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
I'm going to ask questions using slides 3 and 5. I'm trying to ballpark this. I'm trying to think of this in real numbers, the way our citizens think of it. If I have this right, this would suggest that 138 people in 2008 were accused of gang-related homicides; 10 of those accused were youth. In 2007, there were 34 youth out of 118.
Am I wrong about this?
12:05 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
The slide on page 3 is referring to the number of victims, not the number of persons accused.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
12:05 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
Yes, it's the number of victims of gang-related homicides. There were 138 victims in 2008.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Is there an apples to apples comparison? Let's put it this way—
12:05 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
In other words, not all homicides are solved by the police and not all homicides result in an accused person being identified.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Okay. If we just look at slide number 5—this is all I really was getting at, if I think about it—and you average all those numbers, 16%, 32%, 25%, they're probably around 25%. I don't know; you're the statisticians. So one quarter of persons in Canada accused of gang-related homicides are youth, on a roughly three-year average. Is that right?
12:05 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
That's correct.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Along the lines of what Mr. Petit was asking about other serious crime—serious assaults or other serious crimes, such as sexual assaults, assaults, anything in those parts of the code—is it the same proportion? Is there an inordinately high percentage of gang-related homicides being committed by youths, or is this average, or would you be able to guess?
I know statisticians must just hate to guess.
12:10 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
Are you speaking specifically of gang-related homicides?
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Yes. Is it a higher proportion? I'm taking a three-year average; it's about one-quarter. It seems high to me, that people between 12 and 17 are committing a quarter of all accused gang-related homicides in Canada. It seems they are a higher proportion.... Are they a higher proportion of that group than they are of society in general? Are they higher in that slide than they are with respect to other serious crime or crime in general?
12:10 p.m.
Director, Headquarters, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
We don't have those figures in front of us. We would be happy to go back and provide those to the committee for the serious offences you would like us to give you, but we don't have the information right now, so we wouldn't be able to comment.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
12:10 p.m.
Chief/Advisor, Courts Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
There's no way to do it for the other serious violent crimes and whether or not there are youth gangs. That's not possible, because that comes from a different data source.
12:10 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
I could certainly provide you with information that looks at the proportion of youth accused for other types of violent crime, but not if they're gang-related.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
I got that from the previous comment, but just for crime in general—
12:10 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
Right. Absolutely.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
What percentage of our population is between 12 and 17 years of age?
12:10 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
We can absolutely get that for you.
