Table 5
Guilty cases in adult criminal courts, by most serious sentence for the most serious offence in the case, by sex of the offender, Canada, 2003/2004

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Most serious offence Female offenders Male offenders
Total convictions Most serious sentence Total convictions Most serious sentence
Prison Conditional sentence Probation Fine Other1 Prison Conditional sentence Probation Fine Other1
number percentage number percentage
Total offences 34,691 26 7 40 24 4 215,447 38 5 29 26 3
Total Criminal Code(excluding traffic) 26,909 29 7 46 13 5 157,421 43 4 35 14 3
Crimes against the person 6,469 19 6 64 4 6 49,589 38 6 50 4 3
Homicide 12 75 17 8 0 0 122 93 2 3 0 2
Attempted murder 6 50 0 50 0 0 40 83 0 15 0 3
Robbery 247 62 12 26 0 0 2,835 76 7 16 0 1
Sexual assault 10 40 10 40 10 0 1,636 46 18 33 1 2
Other sexual offences 15 27 20 53 0 0 828 47 20 31 0 1
Major assault 1,886 26 10 56 5 4 10,698 48 9 37 5 2
Common assault 3,286 12 3 72 5 8 21,834 26 4 61 5 4
Uttering threats 762 21 4 67 2 5 9,122 37 4 53 3 3
Criminal harassment 111 10 5 80 0 5 1,588 33 6 59 0 2
Other crimes against persons 134 18 12 63 2 5 886 51 8 37 1 3
Crimes against property 11,402 24 10 48 12 5 51,501 45 5 34 13 3
Theft 6,148 24 7 46 17 6 20,184 44 4 31 18 3
Break and enter 441 41 9 45 2 2 8,051 61 8 29 1 1
Fraud 3,156 20 17 52 6 4 8,191 40 9 37 11 3
Mischief 625 16 2 62 11 9 5,955 20 2 58 14 6
Possess stolen property 947 34 6 45 12 2 8,573 53 5 26 14 2
Other property crimes 85 28 14 51 4 4 547 36 10 39 11 4
Crimes against the administration of justice 6,850 47 4 28 18 3 42,251 52 2 19 24 2
Fail to appear 966 49 4 22 22 3 4,428 52 2 14 29 2
Breach of probation 2,627 50 4 28 17 2 16,786 52 3 21 23 1
Unlawfully at large 236 79 4 11 6 0 2,159 84 1 6 9 1
Fail to comply with order 2,678 45 4 28 20 3 17,857 50 2 19 26 2
Other administration of justice 343 18 9 54 15 4 1,021 37 4 33 21 5
Other Criminal Code 2,188 25 4 42 21 9 14,080 33 3 35 23 6
Weapons 186 26 5 51 13 5 3,290 33 4 35 23 5
Prostitution 622 32 1 38 18 10 393 9 3 41 33 14
Disturbing the peace 215 8 0 57 26 9 1,442 16 1 41 34 8
Residual Criminal Code 1,165 24 5 40 23 8 8,955 37 4 33 21 5
Criminal Code traffic 5,130 8 2 10 79 0 34,923 19 2 7 71 0
Impaired driving 4,552 6 1 9 83 0 28,585 14 1 7 79 0
Other Criminal Code traffic 578 25 11 20 43 1 6,338 46 6 9 38 1
Other federal statute total 2,652 25 15 27 29 5 23,103 25 9 19 42 6
Drug possession 680 26 3 35 30 6 5,445 20 2 24 49 6
Drug trafficking 874 36 42 15 6 1 5,865 45 32 11 10 1
Youth Criminal Justice Act 98 23 3 39 32 3 664 37 3 20 37 2
Residual federal statutes 1,000 15 0 30 47 8 11,129 16 0 21 55 8
0 true zero or a value rounded to zero
  1. 'Other' decisions includes final decisions of found not criminally responsible, waived in province/territory, and waived out of province/territory. This category also includes any order where a conviction was not recorded, the court's acceptance of a special plea, cases which raise Charter arguments and cases where the accused was found unfit to stand trial. In jurisdictions not providing superior court data, the other decision category includes charges having a committal for trial in superior court as the decision on the final appearance in provincial court.
Notes: Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding. Excludes cases where the sex of the accused was not recorded or where the accused was a company. In 2003/2004, conditional sentencing data were not available for Quebec. Excludes 1,852 cases in which the most serious sentence received was coded as unknown. In Quebec, most drug offences are recorded under residual federal statutes, resulting in an undercount of drug possession and drug trafficking and an overcount of residual federal statute cases. Adult Criminal Court Survey data are not reported by Manitoba, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut and superior courts in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Ontario and Saskatchewan.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Adult Criminal Court Survey.