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JustResearch Edition no. 13 - Articles

Child Sexual Exploitation in Canada: Incidence, Sentencing and Recidivism

Jeff Latimer, Principal Statistician, Research and Statistics Division

INTRODUCTION

The past two decades have given rise to an increased level of understanding and awareness concerning the sexual exploitation of children. In Canada, there are three broad categories of criminal behaviour which can be grouped under the term child sexual exploitation (CSE): child sexual abuse, child pornography, and child prostitution. These categories, however, are clearly not mutually exclusive. For example, child sexual abuse victims are often also victims of child pornography. For the purposes of this article, however, the three categories will be presented as three distinct types of criminal behaviour.

This article represents a brief quantitative summary of existing adult criminal court data on child sexual exploitation cases in Canada. The three main research questions are:

How many cases of CSE are processed in adult criminal courts?
How do the courts respond to the incidence of CSE?
What is the recidivism rate of CSE offenders?

METHOD

In order to answer these questions, data from the Adult Criminal Court Survey (ACCS), which is managed by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada, will be used. Please note that these data will undercount the true prevalence of child sexual exploitation as a large proportion of child sexual exploitation incidents are not reported to police or child welfare authorities (Latimer 1998).

It also is important to understand that most of the data contained in this article are presented according to the most serious offence in a case based upon a method developed by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. Therefore, some incidents of child sexual exploitation will not be captured herein if there was another offence associated with the same case that was deemed more serious. For example, if an accused was charged with sexual interference and attempted murder, the attempted murder would be considered the most serious offence and the sexual interference charge would therefore not be recorded as a case of CSE. In the section on recidivism, however, please note that this rule does not apply. Cases of child sexual exploitation were identified even if there was a more serious offence in the case, in order to understand offending patterns for anyone who has been convicted of a sexual offence against a child.

Finally, the data in this report does not represent the entire country. New Brunswick and British Columbia only began reporting to the ACCS in 2001/2002, increasing the survey coverage from 80% to 90% of the national adult criminal court caseload. Manitoba does not yet report to the ACCS. In the section on recidivism, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and British Columbia have been excluded as a result of this limitation. The Northwest Territories has also been excluded from the recidivism analysis due to coverage issues since the creation of Nunavut.

RESULTS

Question 1: How many cases of CSE are processed in adult criminal courts?

In 2002/2003, there were a total of 2,854 cases of child sexual exploitation in Canada. Table 1 provides court-based data from the ACCS on the number of cases that were processed in Canadian adult courts over a five-year period. Since these data are not comparable across years due to coverage limitations, it is not possible to discuss trends. Between 2001/2002 and 2002/2003, however, the same number of jurisdictions reported to the ACCS. During this time, there was an overall increase of 12% in child sexual exploitation cases with a 12% increase in the number of sexual interference cases and a 17% increase in the number of sexual exploitation cases. The proportion of cases that proceeded through an indictment was relatively consistent (i.e., approximately 50% or more) across the time periods.

Table 1 - Prevalence of Child Sexual Exploitation Cases In Adult Criminal Court

Question 2: How do the Canadian courts respond to the incidence of CSE?

Table 2 provides information on the most serious decision in a case in 2002/2003 using the following hierarchy: guilty, acquitted, stayed/withdrawn, and other. The overall conviction rate for cases of child sexual exploitation in Canada in 2002/2003 was 38.5%, which is much lower than the general conviction rate in adult court (60%), lower than the conviction rate for violent offences (50%), and slightly lower than the conviction rate for sexual assault cases (41%).

Cases that proceeded by way of an indictment were less likely to be stayed or withdrawn (41%) compared to cases that proceeded summarily (59%). Cases where the most serious offence was possessing or accessing child pornography had the highest conviction rate (60.4%), followed by communicating with a child for the purposes of prostitution (55.2%), distributing child pornography (54.6%), and exposure to a person under 14 years of age (50.8%). Cases of anal intercourse and living off the avails of prostitution were rarely convicted in adult court. The conviction rate for the remaining offences ranged from approximately 30% to 40%.

Table 2 - Most Serious Decision in Cases of Child Sexual Exploitation (2002/2003)

Table 3 provides information on the most serious sentence in a case from the year 2002/2003 based upon the following hierarchy: custody, conditional sentence, probation, fine, and other. For example, if an offender received both custody and probation, the most serious sentence in that case would be custody. Almost half (47.2%) of all child sexual exploitation cases resulting in a guilty decision received a custodial sentence while 29.1% resulted in probation and 21.5% resulted in a conditional sentence. In comparison, 47% of all sexual assault cases in the ACCS received custody, 32% received probation, and 15% received a conditional sentence. When looking at all convicted cases in the ACCS, we can see that the numbers are somewhat different: 35% of cases received custody, 30% received probation, and only 4% received a conditional sentence.

CSE cases that proceeded by way of an indictment were much more likely to receive custody (72%) compared to those cases that proceeded summarily (28%). When examining offences for which there were five or more cases in a cell in Table 3, we notice that incest was the most likely offence to receive a custodial sentence (87.5%), followed by invitation to sexual touching (57.5%) and sexual interference (49.7%). Exposure to a person under the age of 14 years was the least likely offence to receive custody (19.4%).

Table 3 - Most Serious Sentence in Cases of Child Sexual Exploitation (2002/2003)

Question 3: What are the recidivism rates of CSE offenders?

Before such a question can be answered, three important methodological factors need to be discussed. In any study of recidivism, the results will vary depending on the definition of recidivism, the sample of offenders, and the follow-up periods used in the research. Generally, broader definitions of recidivism, higher risk samples, and longer follow-up periods produce higher recidivism rates. Therefore, the results of the existing research provide conflicting and varied answers to this question depending on the method utilised. That being said, however, the existing Canadian literature does provide some indication of the recidivism rates among child sexual exploitation offenders.

Before exploring the recidivism of CSE offenders, it is useful for comparative purposes to examine the general recidivism rate of all offenders. In a recent study, the general recidivism rate for federal offenders (i.e., offenders serving custodial sentences of two years or more) was reported at approximately 44% within two years of their release (Bonta et al. 2003).

Harris and Hanson (2004), in their extensive summary of existing data sources, found that within five years, the sexual recidivism rate for general sexual offenders was 14%, and by 15 years, this number had increased to 24%. Harris and Hanson (2004) further examined types of sexual offenders (e.g., rapists, incest offenders, molesters) after 15 years and found that CSE incest offenders (intra-familial) had a much lower rate of sexual recidivism (13%), while CSE offenders who molested girl victims (extra-familial) demonstrated a 16% sexual recidivism rate and CSE offenders who molested boy victims (extra-familial) demonstrated a 35% sexual recidivism rate.

Langevin et al. (2004) recently published a study of 320 sexual offenders who were seen for psychiatric assessment between 1966 and 1974, using a 25-year follow-up period. The authors reported that 88% of the offenders had sexually re-offended within the follow-up period. This is obviously much higher than Harris and Hanson's (2004) figure of 24%. As noted previously, however, there are differences in method that may account for much of the discrepancy.

First, Langevin et al. (2004) included convictions, charges, court appearances and self-reported criminal behaviour found in hospital records in their definition of recidivism while Harris and Hanson (2004) used official charges and convictions only. It is not surprising that using a broader definition of recidivism produces higher recidivism rates. Second, Langevin et al. (2004) used a sample of psychiatric patients which diminishes the generalizability of the findings to all sexual offenders. This sample consists of offenders who were assessed for a psychiatric illness and, as such, likely represents an unique sub-group of sexual offenders. Harris and Hanson's (2004) sample was primarily comprised of offenders released from custodial facilities and therefore may be more representative of the general sexual offender population.

Hanson et al. (1995), using a 15-30 year follow-up period with CSE offenders only, reported a 42% recidivism rate for any new sexual and/or violent crime. The 42% recidivism rate for CSE offenders was much lower than the 88% reported in the Langevin et al. (2004) study although the time periods were roughly similar. The difference may again be related to the definition of recidivism and the characteristics of the sample, as Hanson et al. (1995) used reconvictions to measure recidivism and sampled only CSE offenders released from prison.

In order to provide a recidivism rate that would be more generalizable to the entire CSE offender population, data from the Adult Criminal Court Survey, which covers virtually all criminal convictions across Canada, were analysed. All offenders convicted of a CSE offence in 1998/1999 were selected for this analysis. ^[5]Since these were essentially all of the available cases in the eight provinces and territories reporting to the ACCS for that year, it is likely these results would be highly generalizable to child sexual exploitation offenders in general. In order to measure recidivism, the first new conviction within five years of the original conviction date was identified. ^[6]This provided all offenders in the sample with the same five-year window for the conviction of a new offence following their child sexual exploitation conviction. [7]In addition to general recidivism rates, violent non-sexual recidivism rates, sexual recidivism rates, and child sexual exploitation recidivism rates were calculated. It is important to identify the type of recidivism, as offenders may be reconvicted of rather minor crimes, such as offences against the administration of justice (e.g., probation violation) or theft, which do not pose the same level of risk to society.

The results in Table 4 indicate that 29% of CSE offenders were convicted of a new offence during the five-year follow-up period. A smaller proportion were convicted of a new violent or sexual offence – 9% of CSE offenders were convicted of a new violent non-sexual offence, 4% were convicted of a new sexual offence, and 3% were convicted of a new child sexual exploitation offence. These rates are significantly lower than those reported in the literature (e.g., Langevin et al. 2004; Hanson et al. 1995).

There are several probable explanations for the reduced recidivism rates contained in Table 4 compared to the rates found in other Canadian research. First, recidivism is defined as a new conviction, while other studies have used convictions, charges, and self-report information from mental health records. As discussed previously, since not all child sexual offences come to the attention of authorities, using convictions generally produces lower rates of recidivism. Second, the sample of offenders is essentially all child sexual exploitation offenders in 1998/1999, thus including those offences at both the low- and high-end of the seriousness spectrum and those offenders at the low- and high-end of the risk spectrum. In previous research, samples have typically been drawn from psychiatric populations or prison populations and, therefore, likely included higher risk offenders. Third, the five-year follow-up period, while relatively long and acceptable for measuring recidivism, was not nearly as long as those found in many of the published studies (e.g., 15 years). Finally, due to the data linkage method used in calculating recidivism rates, it is possible that a small number of offenders were not identified as recidivists.

Table 4 - Five-Year Recidivism Rates For Child Sexual Exploitation Offenders (1998/99 to 2003/2004)

A second point to consider when looking at recidivism rates is the impact of sentencing. Recent research using meta-analytic techniques, which aggregate a substantial number of previously conducted studies, has consistently demonstrated that custodial sentences are associated with slight increases in recidivism compared to non-custodial sentencing options (Gendreau et al. 1999; Smith et al. 2002). Furthermore, these same meta-analyses demonstrate that longer custodial sentences are also associated with slight increases in recidivism compared to shorter custodial sentences. Both these differences, however, diminish when the data are weighted according to sample size. Nonetheless, there is clearly no evidence to suggest that prison reduces the likelihood of recidivism. In fact, within a random sample of young offenders from youth court in Toronto and Halifax, Latimer and Dowden (2005) found that youth who received custodial sentences were twice as likely to be convicted of a new offence within three years compared to youth who received non-custodial sentences, even after controlling for criminal history, age, gender and the seriousness of the offence.

The ACCS recidivism data further supports this relationship between custody and increased recidivism. Among those CSE offenders who had no prior convictions in adult court before their CSE offence in 1998/99 (i.e., first-time offenders), 22% of those who received a custodial sentence had a new conviction in the five-year follow-up period compared to 16% of those who received a non-custodial sentence. Of those CSE offenders who had at least one prior conviction before their CSE offence in 1998/98 (i.e., repeat offenders), 56% of those who received a custodial sentence had a new conviction in the five-year follow-up period compared to 43% of those who received a non-custodial sentence. Therefore, these data suggest that those CSE offenders who receive custody tend to have higher rates of recidivism compared to those accused who receive non-custodial sentences regardless of their criminal history , which is one of the strongest predictors of recidivism. It is important to note, however, that this analysis did not control for other factors that may explain differences in recidivism, such as the seriousness of the CSE offence and characteristics of the accused (e.g., criminogenic needs, age, gender).

CONCLUSIONS

The following conclusions can be made based upon analysis of ACCS data and the limited literature reviewed for this article:

Child sexual exploitation cases are less likely to result in a conviction (38.5%) compared to the general conviction rate for all offences (60%) or the conviction rate for all violent offences (50%). It is similar, however, to the conviction rate for all sexual assault cases (41%).
Two-thirds of child sexual exploitation cases (68.7%) receive either a custody sentence (47.2%) or a conditional sentence of custody (21.5%) as the most serious sentence.
The Crown election is directly related to the severity of the criminal sanction, in that cases that proceed by way of an indictment are more likely to receive a more serious sentence.
Recidivism rates are directly impacted by the method employed to calculate them, in that broader definitions of recidivism, longer follow-up periods, and higher risk samples produce higher recidivism rates.
Approximately 29% of CSE offenders were reconvicted of a new offence in adult court within five years of their original child sexual exploitation conviction.
Only 3% of CSE offenders were convicted of a new child sexual exploitation offence within five years of their original CSE conviction.
There is no evidence to suggest that custodial sentences are related to decreases in recidivism.

References

Bonta, J., T. Rugge, and M. Dauvergne. 2003. The recidivism of federal offenders . Ottawa: Solicitor General Canada.
Gendreau, P., C. Goggin, and F. Cullen. 1999. The effects of prison sentences on recidivism . Ottawa: Solicitor General Canada.
Hanson, R. K., H. Scott, and R. Steffy. 1995. A comparison of child molesters and non-sexual criminals: Risk predictors and long-terms recidivism. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 32:325-337.
Harris, A., and R. K. Hanson. 2004. Sex offenders recidivism: A simple question . Ottawa: Solicitor General Canada.
Langevin, R., S. Curnoe, P. Fedoroff, R. Bennett, M. Langevin, C. Peever, R. Pettica, and S. Sandhu. 2004. Lifetime sex offender recidivism: A 25-year follow-up study. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 46:531-552.
Latimer, J. 1998. The consequences of child maltreatment: A reference guide for health practitioners . Ottawa: Health Canada.
Latimer, J., and C. Dowden. 2005. Sentencing in youth court: The effect of custody on recidivism. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Smith, P., C. Goggin, and P. Gendreau. 2002. The effects of prison sentences and intermediate sanctions on recidivism: General effects and individual differences. Ottawa: Solicitor General Canada.

[5] All convictions were selected from the ACCS database during the reference year 1998/99 except for cases where the accused was missing an identifier, the sex of the accused was unknown, the accused was a corporation, or the date of birth of the accused was missing. This was necessary as these were used to link records and calculate recidivism rates.
[6] It should be noted that it is possible that the linkage procedure may not have identified all cases of recidivism if, for example, the accused changed his/her id or if there were errors in data capture procedures. As well, treason and first- and second-degree murder are under the exclusive jurisdiction of superior courts and the data coverage for superior courts is quite limited in the ACCS. As such, it is possible that reconvictions for first- or second-degree murder are missing from this analysis. In addition, there was no cross-jurisdiction matching: recidivism was based on convictions in the same province/territory where the original CSE conviction occurred.
[7] Although the window of opportunity was the same (i.e., five years), it should be noted that many offenders were incarcerated for the original offence and, as such, not all the offenders were at the same level of risk for re-offending.