NCJ Number
178520
Journal
Juristat Volume: 18 Issue: 14 Dated: December 1998 Pages: 1-17
Date Published
1998
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This is a summary of the activity of adult provincial/territorial criminal courts in Canada for the 1997-98 fiscal year.
Abstract
Adult criminal courts in the nine participating jurisdictions disposed of 411,576 cases, involving 864,837 charges, an 8-percent decrease in cases since 1994-95. Impaired driving, common assault and theft accounted for almost 40 percent of cases heard. Sixty-one percent of the cases resulted in a finding of guilt for at least one charge in the case, a prison sentence was imposed in 33 percent of cases with convictions and probation was given in 43 percent. Multiple-charge cases tended to result in more serious sentences than single-charge cases. For cases requiring more than one court appearance (80 percent of the caseload), the median elapsed time from first to last appearance was approximately 3 months. Generally speaking, more serious offenses took longer to process. The report includes data on demographic characteristics of the accused, dispositions, sentencing and sentencing reforms. Notes, figures, tables