An Estimation of the Economic Impact of Violent Victimization in Canada, 2009

The costs of victimization of five violent crimes are analyzed in this report: assault, criminal harassment, homicide, robbery, and sexual assault and other sexual offences. Incidents that occurred in 2009 are included, and all costs, or impacts, of those incidents are included, regardless of when the costs were incurred. Only incidents involving adult victims (18 and up) and a non-spousal relationship between the victim and offender are included. For the costs of spousal violence, see Zhang et al. (2012).

Measuring the costs of social phenomena is a well-established and important exercise that increases the understanding of social issues and, when used in conjunction with other informative research, can assist policymakers and allow for insight into resource allocation.

The total cost associated with victimization of these five crimes occurred in 2009 is estimated to be $12.7 billion, or $376 per Canadian. Assault victimization cost $2.1 billion; criminal harassment victimization cost $0.5 billion; homicide victimization cost $3.7 billion; robbery victimization cost $1.6 billion; sexual assault and other sexual offences victimization cost $4.8 billion. Note that these figures are not annual costs, and they capture all the associated costs resulted from the victimization in 2009.

This report analyzes costs attributed to the party that bears the impact, not the actual monetary loss for three cost categories for each crime: justice system costs, victim costs, and third-party costs. Across all five crimes, justice system costs were $1.9 billion, victim costs were $10.6 billion, and third-party costs were $0.2 billion.