Personal Safety and Perceptions of the Criminal Justice System

This report presents a series of tables on Canadians' outlook on crime and the criminal justice system at both the national and Census Metropolitan Area¹ levels. The information was collected in 2004 through Cycle 18 of the General Social Survey (GSS) on victimization. This survey, which has been previously carried out in 1988, 1993, and 1999, collects information on Canadians' experience of victimization, and public attitudes towards crime, police, courts, prison and parole. For an analytic overview of some of the main findings, please refer to General Social Survey on Victimization, Cycle 18: An Overview of Findings.

The target population of the 2004 GSS included all people aged 15 and over, except full-time residents of the Yukon, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories. Data were collected each month from January to December 2004. Over this period, approximately 24,000 individuals were successfully interviewed, yielding a response rate of 75%. For more detailed information on the methodology, refer to the section at the end of this report.

Note

1. A Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) is defined as a large urban core (over 100,000 population) together with adjacent urban and rural areas that have a high degree of economic and social integration.