ICCS: An Overview of the Integrated Criminal Court Survey www.statcan.gc.ca Telling Canada s story in numbers Andrea Taylor-Butts Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Statistics Canada June 22, 2017
Introduction to the ICCS: The ICCS is an annual, administrative survey that collects statistical information on appearances, charges and cases involving Criminal Code and other federal statute offences Census of pending and completed federal statute charges heard in youth and adult criminal courts in Canada. 2
ICCS Data Collection Collected in collaboration with provincial and territorial government departments responsible for adult criminal courts and youth courts in Canada Based on set of National Data Requirements Data are extracted from court administrative databases and sent to CCJS where they are processed. 3
Types of Courts Covered on the ICCS Federal courts Out of scope Supreme Court of Canada Tax Court of Canada Federal Court of Canada Appeal courts Out of Scope (Provincial/Territorial) Court of Appeal Provincial/Territorial Superior courts IN SCOPE (Provincial/Territorial) Criminal Superior Courts Provincial/Territorial Courts IN SCOPE (Provincial/Territorial) Youth/Criminal Courts Provincial/Territorial 4
Coverage for the ICCS varies over time and is different for adult and youth: Adult component 10 provinces and 3 territories report as of 2005/2006 Adult component varies by jurisdiction, timing of transition from ACCS and level of court Coverage for 8 jurisdictions since1994/1995; 10 jurisdictions since 2000/2001 Information from superior courts in Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan as well as municipal courts in Quebec is not available. Youth component has coverage for all 13 jurisdictions back to 1991/1992 (the beginning of collection). 5
The ICCS is designed to collect information on a number of variables: Offence types (Criminal Code sections, subsections etc ) Decisions Outcomes/sentencing details Processing time/elapsed time to case completion Characteristics of the accused (age, sex) Preliminary inquiry Bail Court location Legal representation Crown election Trial Victim Surcharge 6
Appearance, Charges & Cases The ICCS collects appearances and derives two basic units of count: completed charges and completed cases (the primary unit of analysis). 7
UNITS OF COUNT
Units of Analysis Main Units of Dissemination Case: One or more charges against an accused person or company, which were processed by the courts at the same time and received a final decision. Charge: A formal accusation against an accused person, that is processed by the courts and received a final decision. Alternatively Information: One or more charges against an accused where the charges laid under a single information are grouped together. 9
More about how the ICCS defines a case: The case definition was develop to reflect the sentencing outcomes of an accused. Combines all charges, against the same person, with one or more key dates overlapping into a single case date of offence, date of initiation, date of first appearance, or date of decision A person-based concept 10
ICCS Definition of a Case: Charge 1 Charge 2 Charge 3 Charge 4 Charge 5 Charge 6 A1 A1 A1 CASE 2 C A S E 1 A1 = Date of first appearance = Date court opened file for charge = Date court disposed of charge 11
The Charge File: ICCS s Main Analytical File Contains all completed charges for all completed cases. Each record represents a completed charge; each charge mush belong to a completed case. The files contains a flag to organize charges into cases Includes information on approximately 144 variables Characteristics of charges, cases, accused Currently available in select RDCs (pilot project) 12
ANALYSING ICCS DATA
Examples of Analysis of ICCS data Standard publications Annual Juristat articles & CANSIM tables Case and charge counts Decision types Sentencing information Types of Sentences Length /Amount (mean, median) Case processing time Mean, median case length Number of appearances 14
Standard ICCS Indicators Adult criminal courts, 2014/2015 328,028 completed cases (992,635 completed charges) Median elapsed time 121 days 1,315 Superior court cases 326,713 Provincial court cases Decision 207,528 Guilty (63%) 13,162 Acquitted (4%) 103,980 Stayed/ Withdrawn (32%) 3,358 Other (1%) Sentence 76,340 Custody (37%) 8,430 Conditional Sentence (4%) 89,151 Probation (43%) 64,964 Fine (31%) 4,739 Restitution (2%) 149,421 Other (72%) 15
Verdicts of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder in adult criminal courts, 2005/2006 2011/2012 NCRMD case represented less than 1% of adult criminal court cases processed annually One in five NCRMD cases involved major assault 30 25 20 Distribution of NCRMD cases completed in adult criminal courts by length of elapsed time, 2005/06 2011/12 (combined) NCRMD cases Non-NCRMD cases NCRMD cases involved slightly older accused than non-ncrmd cases 15 10 NCRMD cases took longer to complete than non-ncrmd criminal court cases 5 0 1-30 days 31-60 days 61-120 days 121-240 days 241-365 days 366-547 days 548+ days 16
Examples of Analysis of ICCS data Record linkage with policing data Record linkage has been conducted with the ICCS and the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey to examine topics such as: impaired driving intimate partner violence drug-related offences 17
Impaired driving, 2014/2015 The median time to complete an alcohol-impaired driving case was 127 days and 227 days for drug-impaired cases. Cases involving alcohol-impaired driving required an average of 5 appearances; the average for drug-impaired case was 7 appearances. P.E.I. Median length of impaired driving cases in criminal courts, by substance causing impairment and jurisdiction, 2010/11 to 2014/15 N.L. N.S. N.B. Que. Alcohol Drugs Six in ten accused had been charged in a previous impaired driving case within the past 10 years. On average, the cases involving re-contact required more court appearances and took longer to be processed by the courts. 18 Ont. Man. Sask. Alta. B.C. Territories 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Drug-related offences in Canada, 2013 About half (55%) of all adult criminal and three-quarters (77%) of youth court cases involved cannabis. Cases related to drugs (other than cannabis) took longer to complete than non-drug related cases. Cases that included charges related to cannabis completed in adult criminal court were more commonly stayed or withdrawn than cases involving other drugs (55% vs. 38%). Median length of case time for completed drug-related cases in adult criminal court, by type of drug and type of offence, Canada, 2008/2009 to 2011/2012. Cannabis Cocaine Heroin Methamphetamines Custody was imposed in about one-third Ecstasy of all completed drug-related cases in adult criminal court. Cases related to Other CDSA drug supply involved custody about twice as frequently as cases related to drug possession. 0 100 200 300 Supply Possession 19
Cases in adult criminal courts involving intimate partner violence, 2012 Between 2005/2006 and 2010/2011, intimate partner violence (IPV) accounted for 6 in 10 completed adult criminal court cases resulting from violent criminal incidents reported by police. The median length of time to complete an IPV case was shorter than that for cases that did not involve intimate partner violence (124 days vs. 151 days). A slightly larger proportion of non-ipv cases resulted in a guilty verdict than did IPV cases (64% vs. 60%). 60 50 40 30 20 10 Guilty cases completed in adult criminal court by most serious sentence and relationship, Canada, 2005/06 to 201/11 Probation was the most serious sentence imposed in just under half (49%) of IPV cases with a guilty decision. 0 Custody Conditional sentence Probation Fine Other sentences 20 IPV cases Non-IPV cases
Some Considerations/Limitations Issues associated with administrative data Coverage-related Data limitations and gaps Amendments to the Criminal Code Various processes, procedures and administrative practices in the court system How ICCS defines case Analytical file based on completed cases 21
Some Considerations/Limitations (cont d) Issues associated with administrative data Missing variables, missing values No one jurisdiction reports all variables; often cannot provide all values of variables reported or cannot report data elements in the way intended Data entry errors Coverage-related Coverage has varied over time; full national coverage for adult criminal courts began in 2005/2006 Superior court data not available for certain jurisdictions (i.e., impact on sentence severity and processing time) 22
Some Considerations/Limitations (cont d) Data limitations and gaps Bail Legal representation Specialized courts Warrants Crown Proceedings / Crown Election Mode of trial Plea Remand Sworn date Appearance level information Adjournment requested by- Reason for adjournment o o Decision o Stay - Charter Argument Delay over the ceiling Exceptional circumstances 23
Some Considerations/Limitations (cont d) Amendments to the Criminal Code Impact on specific offences, legality of certain sentences Various processes, procedures and administrative practices in the court system Police charging practices Pre-charge screening Differences between adult and youth cases 24
Some Considerations/Limitations (cont d) How ICCS defines case There is more than one way to define a case Analytical file based on completed cases, only for now Information on pending cases is collected. However, currently the processing system only allows for the production of a final analytical file that is based on completed charges and cases 25
Comparisons with other Criminal Justice Data Can be difficult: No standard or common unit of count Changes in charges laid/diversion Time lag However, can examine pathways using record linkage 26
On the Horizon The ICCS Redesign project 10 years ago the data model was designed to answer information needs on sentencing outcomes 2016 - Information needs on case processing New record linkage Socio-demographic variables Census, tax data 27
Accessing ICCS Data Published products Custom requests Research Data Centres Deemed employee status 28
Thank-you. Andrea Taylor-Butts Production Manager, Integrated Criminal Court Survey Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Statistics Canada andrea.taylor-butts@canada.ca (613) 951-2065 29