The Impacts and Consequences of
Criminal Victimization
The impact and consequences of criminal victimization can involve physical injury, financial loss, and property damage, as well as psychological and emotional after-effects.
According to the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS), there were over two million violent incidents in Canada against persons 15 years of age and older, one-quarter of which resulted in an injury. Equal proportions of physical assault (31%) and robbery incidents (30%) resulted in an injury while incidents of sexual assault were less likely to involve a physical injury (7%);
Among violent incidents involving injuries, 24% were serious enough to require the victim to seek medical attention while 20% of incidents resulted in the victim requiring bed rest. In addition, many of these injurious incidents resulted in victims being unable to carry out their day-to-day activities (39%);
Violent victimization can also result in sleeping problems. The GSS showed that victims of violence (32%) were almost twice as likely to report sleeping problems during the month prior to the survey than persons who had not been a victim of a crime (17%). In addition, a larger proportion of female victims (37%) of violent victimization reported experiencing sleeping problems relative to their male counterparts (28%);
- Not all violent incidents result in physical injury, but many may leave emotional scars. Among those emotions that the violent incident did evoke, being angry (32%), being upset, confused or frustrated (20%), and feeling fearful (18%) were the most prevalent. For about one in ten incidents, victims said their experience made them more cautious or aware (9%);
- Another potential consequence of victimization is a decrease in one’s feelings of personal safety. According to the GSS, 37% of victims of a violent incident reported feeling very safe walking alone after dark, compared to 46% of those who had not been victimized;
- According to the GSS, just under one-third of victims of violence (30%) installed new locks or security bars while this was the case for 10% of non-victims;
- More than eight out of 10 household or property-related incidents resulted in financial losses. The majority of incidents resulted in losses of under $500 (60%) while in 15% of household and property-related incidents losses of more that $1,000 were reported;
- In addition to direct losses, property and household incidents are also costly when considering the time lost to replace damaged and/or stolen goods, or to wait for service or insurance agents. More than six out of 10 property and household-related incidents resulted in disruptions of the victim’s day-to-day activities that exceeded six hours. A larger percentage of these non-violent incidents resulted in victims losing one day (38%) of normal activities, followed by 18% of incidents resulting in two days of disruption and a further 12% of incidents resulting in three days of disruption;
- Based on data collected through Statistics Canada surveys, it is estimated that the total financial expenditures for administering policing, courts, legal aid, prosecutions and adult corrections totalled over $12 billion in 2002/2003. This total translates into $399 per Canadian. The majority of the funding was spent on policing (61%), followed by adult corrections (22%), courts (9%), legal aid (5%) and criminal prosecutions (3%); and,
- According to a 2004 Canadian study, researchers estimated that the cost of pain and suffering experienced by victims of crime was close to $36 billion. Researchers used police and self-reported data to determine the emotional and physical impacts of victimization (Leung, 2004).
Emotional impacts of domestic violence
- The emotions that were most often reported by victims of spousal violence were being upset, confused or frustrated because of the violence (37% of women and 28% of men), or angry (37% of women and 25% of men). Women were also much more likely than men to say that they were fearful in general because of the violence (30% versus 5%), hurt or disappointed (25% versus 12%), or depressed or suffer from anxiety attacks (21% versus 9%). Women were also more likely to experience being more cautious/aware, having sleeping problems, being ashamed or feeling guilty, being afraid for their children, being more self-reliant and having problems relating to members of the opposite sex.
