Title: Adult criminal court survey (ACCS)

Series title: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS)

Principal investigator(s): Statistics Canada. Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS)

Producer: Ottawa, Ont.: Statistics Canada. Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS)

Date of creation: varies [2010-08 Latest]

Funding agency:

Collector:

Distributor: Ottawa, Ont.: Statistics Canada. Data Liberation Initiative.

Date of distribution: varies

Access conditions/restrictions: University of Toronto faculty, students and staff, for academic research and teaching purposes only. See DLI licence.

Summary: This product is based on case characteristics data from the Adult Criminal Court Survey. Data on disposed federal statute charges are collected by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS) in collaboration with provincial and territorial government departments responsible for adult criminal courts.

The objective of the Adult Criminal Court Survey (ACCS) is to develop and maintain a national adult criminal court database of statistical information on appearances, charges, and cases. The survey is intended to be a census of federal and provincial/territorial statute charges and municipal by-law infractions heard in adult criminal courts in Canada.

The Adult Criminal Court Survey (ACCS) has two primary components: caseload and case characteristics. The Case Characteristics component of the survey collects detailed information on each appearance of an accused charged with a Criminal Code or Other Federal Statute offence. The survey collects all appearances in provincial courts for 'completed' charges within a certain reference period. As of March 1994, Case Characteristics data are collected from five jurisdictions: Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Saskatchewan and the Yukon. The Caseload Component of the ACCS is designed to collect aggregate information on charges, persons and appearances on a quarterly basis from all jurisdictions in Canada. As of March 1994, six jurisdictions participate in the caseload component of the survey: Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Yukon. As a result, the coverage of provincial and territorial adult criminal court caseload in Canada is approximately 30 percent for the Case Characteristics component and 65 percent for the Caseload component.

Geographic coverage: Adult criminal courts in nine provinces and one territory reported to the ACCS. Reporting jurisdictions include: Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon. In addition, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon reported superior court data to the ACCS. These jurisdictions represent approximately 90% of the national adult criminal court caseload.

Time period: 1994/1995 - [latest 2008-2009]

Date(s) of collection:

Universe:

Data type: time-series

Unit of observation: The primary unit of analysis is the case, which is defined as one or more charges presented against an individual and disposed of in court on the same day. All case information that is used to define the case, is determined by the "most serious offence", as described in the methodology section. The individuals involved are persons 18 years or older at the time of the offence, companies, as well as youths who have been transferred to adult criminal court.

Sample:

Mode of data collection: process-produced

Extent of file: 19 data files (Beyond 20/20 format; number of logical records varies)

Citation: Statistics Canada. Adult criminal court survey: Guilty cases by most serious sentence, 1994/1995 - 2005/2006 [computer file]. Ottawa, Ont.: Statistics Canada. Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS)[producer]; Statistics Canada. Data Liberation Initiative [distributor], 2008-02-25

Notes:
2008-02-25:

• There are changes in the definition of some elements in this survey; therefore, the names of the tables have changed and the old tables are not comparable to the new tables.
• Statistics in this release should not be compared to statistics from previous released.
• The concept of a case has changed from previous releases to more closely reflect court processing. The new definition combines all charges against the same person having overlapping court dates into a single case. The previous definition combined all charges against the same persons disposed of in court on the same day into a case. This tended to undercount the number of charges in a case, overcount the number of cases and underestimate the length of time required to process a case through court because not all charges are necessarily disposed of on the same day.
• To account for the new case definition, youth court data dating back to 1991/1992 and adult court data dating back to 1994/1995 have been revised.