Annex II – Definitions

Accessible: Having equal access to the information and assistance that is needed to help prevent legal issues and help resolve such issues efficiently, affordably, and fairly.

Administration of justice offences: Offences committed against the integrity of the criminal justice system. They include the following Criminal Code violations: fail to comply with order, escape or help to escape from lawful custody, prisoner unlawfully at large, fail to appear, breach of probation, misleading or lying to a justice official under oath, and public mischief.

Adverse childhood experiences: Negative, stressful and traumatic events experienced during childhood, such as sexual, physical or emotional abuse and/or neglect. Adverse childhood experiences can also include witnessing violence in the family household, experiencing a death in the family, having an incarcerated household member, experiencing parental separation or divorce, or having at least one parent with substance use or mental health problems.

Anti-Black racism: Prejudice, attitudes, beliefs, stereotyping and discrimination that are directed at people of African descent and are rooted in their unique history and experience of enslavement and its legacy. Anti-Black racism is deeply entrenched in Canadian institutions, policies and practices, to the extent that it is either functionally normalized or rendered invisible to the larger White society. It is manifested in the current social, economic, and political marginalization of African Canadians, which results in unequal opportunities, lower socio-economic status, higher unemployment, significant poverty rates, and overrepresentation in the criminal justice system.

Colonialism: The policy of taking political and economic control over one group or nation by another, underpinned by racist doctrines of superiority.

Crimes against the person: Includes force or threat of force against someone, for example murder, sexual assault and harassment.

Distinction-based approach: An approach that recognizes the unique rights, interests and circumstances of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis as distinct groups.

E: Use with caution. As with any household survey, the results are based on a sample of the population and are therefore subject to sampling errors. Somewhat different results might have been obtained if the entire population had been surveyed.

Ethno-cultural background: An individual’s characteristics that are unique to, and recognized by, a certain community or group. This includes characteristics such as cultural traditions, ancestry, language, national identity, country of origin and/or physical traits.

Extrajudicial measures: A way to hold youth accountable for less serious offences without traditional court processing. Some examples of these measures include formal/informal warnings, cautions, or referrals. They also include traditional diversion programs such as community service, compensation to the victim, or counselling.

F: Too unreliable to publish. As with any household survey, the results are based on a sample of the population and are therefore subject to sampling errors. Somewhat different results might have been obtained if the entire population had been surveyed.

Fair: Being treated according to the rule of law, without discrimination, while also having the circumstances of the crime as well as the individual characteristics of the victim (e.g., the impact on the harm) or the accused (e.g., age, past behaviours, lived experiences, history of victimization, mental health and substance abuse issues) considered throughout the process.

Gender: Socially-constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls/women, boys/men and gender-diverse people. It influences how people perceive themselves and each other, how they act and interact, the distribution of power and resources in society, and people’s social, health and economic outcomes.

Gender identity: How people perceive themselves with respect to their gender. Gender identity is not confined to a binary (girl/woman, boy/man) nor is it static; it exists along a continuum and can change over time. There is considerable diversity in how individuals and groups understand, experience and express gender through the roles they take on, the expectations placed on them, relations with others and the complex ways that gender is institutionalized in society.

Other Criminal Code offences: Crimes that fall outside of the crimes against the person or property, including for example drug offences.

Overrepresented: Disproportionate representation of a group within a subpopulation compared with their representation in the population as a whole; for example, a group that makes up a larger percentage of the prison population than of the general population is overrepresented in prison.

Pre-trial detention: When a young person accused of a crime is held in custody prior to their trial or bail hearing.

Property crime: Unlawful acts to gain property, but do not involve the use or threat of violence against the person. These can include offences such as theft, breaking and entering, burglary, auto theft, arson and vandalism.

Race: A term used to classify people into groups based principally on physical traits (phenotypes) such as skin colour. Racial categories are not based on science or biology but on differences that society has created (i.e., they are “socially constructed”), with significant consequences for people’s lives. Racial categories may vary over time and place and can overlap with ethnic, cultural or religious groupings.

Racialization: The process through which groups come to be socially constructed as races, based on characteristics such as physical traits, historical and political factors, as well as geographic, historical, political, economic, social and cultural factors.

Racialized: Individuals grouped as a result of racialization (see the definition of racialization for more information).

Restitution: An order that requires an offender to pay the victim for specific financial losses they suffered because of the offender’s crime.

Sexual orientation: Romantic and sexual attraction for people of the same or another sex or gender.

Structural inequalities: Conditions where one category of people have an unequal status in relation to other categories of people. This refers specifically to inequalities that are rooted in normal operations of dominant social institutions and can be divided into categories such as residential segregation or healthcare, employment, and educational discrimination.

Systemic discrimination: Patterns of behaviour, as well as policies and practices, that create or continue disadvantages for a group of people with common characteristics, such as racialized identity.