Updated: Tue May. 20 2008 9:49:45 AM

CTV.ca News Staff

The wheels of criminal justice are grinding ever slower in the country's adult courts, finds a Statistics Canada study.

In 2006-2007, it took an average of eight months to complete a case, compared to six months five years earlier, the agency said Tuesday.

"Longer times to complete cases may be in part due to an increase in the proportion of cases involving multiple charges," the study said.

In 2006-2007, cases involving multiple charges comprised 60 per cent of the adult case load, compared to 53 per cent a decade earlier, it said.

Although complexity is rising, fewer cases are being handled by the courts.

The courts handled just over 372,000 cases in 2006-07, a decrease of seven per cent compared to five years earlier.

Here are the types of offences being handled by the courts (rounding error means the numbers below don't add up to 100):

• Crimes against the person - 25 per cent
• Property crimes - 24 per cent
• Administration of justice - 17 per cent
• Criminal Code traffic - 15 per cent
• Other Criminal Code and federal statutes - 20 per cent.

Sixty-five per cent of cases before the courts received a guilty verdict, with almost 90 per cent of those verdicts coming from a guilty plea.

Criminal Code traffic offences saw findings of guilt in almost 80 per cent of cases. However, there were guilty verdicts in only 53 per cent of crimes-against-the-person cases.

More than four in 10 offenders were sentenced to probation in 2006-07, with custodial sentences in 34 per cent of cases, and fines in 30 per cent.

The proportion sent to prison is up slightly compared to five years ago, and the proportion fined is down slightly. The proportion sentenced to probation hasn't substantially changed, Statistics Canada said.

The agency said that the data it used for 2006-2007 covered 98 per cent of the adult criminal caseload nationwide.

In its trend analysis, all provinces and territories were included except for Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Comments are now closed for this story

Mark M
I have first hand knowledge of this! Cases are getting longer because more and more lawyers are asking for extensions and for procedural delays. Add all the complex DNA and forensic evidence along with every challenge this generates and you have longer cases. Most of all DNA evidence is well documented and accepted but is still allowed to be challenged way to much by judges. Some things of course have to challenged but the system the way it is now will not last much longer with all the technicalities of modern evidence gathering. It won't be long until defendant will be set free on a regular basis due to denial of a "speedy" trial.

Time for some badly needed changes
"The system is broke!"

The genius in any system is to reduce the complex to simple procedures.

These rights and freedoms have contributed to the complexity and non-sense of our system. The reason for multiple charges likely has to do with the judges letting people off the hook too easily so the police lay multiple charges to ensure offenders are tagged with something since judges won't do their job properly.

We badly need an overhaul starting with a serious injection of some good old common sense.

David
In the U.S., if you go to trial and are convicted, you get a longer sentence than had you plead guilty. Not in Canada. You get the same sentence or maybe even a lower one.
Trials make money for lawyers. So accused are encouraged to go to trial because there is no extra sanction for wasting the courts time. Figure out how to correct that problem, and you will have solved the delayed justice problem.
Since the rules that govern the system are made by lawyers, I wouldn't count on them derailing the gravy train anytime soon.

Guilty Verdict
There are numerous reasons for this: With the progression of technology, more and more evidence has become available and accepted in the courts. For instance, where previously only a few locations used CCTV or other cameras, these are now commonly used, and some are quite advanced, allowing for easy replication onto DVD. Another example is the widespread use of digital photography, such as camera phones: As society shifts to a decreasingly "private" world, the police must exhaust every possible angle in their search for evidence, and subsequent processing and documentation of same. This increases investigation time, and then leads to the involvement of experts in court, to conclude that, per the examples above, the digital images are original, were not altered, and so on. Experts are also needed surrounding the admission of e-mails, etc. The testimony surrounding evidence is absurd.

Along the same lines, televised investigation shows leave jurors believing that collection and processing of evidence is simple, and that there is an abundance of available options to solve a crime, not knowing that what they see on CSI often does not even exist yet.
Again, this results in investigations that are absurdly lengthy in order to satisfy expectations.

Criminals are increasingly being found "not guilty" based on ridiculous arguments on the part of defense lawyers...there is overwhelming evidence of guilt, but insanely weak charter challenge arguments see the guilty party go free. In fact, I don't think criminal cases proceed anymore with at least one, if not multiple, charter challenges.

It's time that the process indeed become simplified; the only people benefitting from all of this are lawyers.

Betty Q
Our Justice system fails us everyday. As a law abiding citizen, I feel if I were a victim my rights would be ignored. Between Liberal human rights advocates and Lawyers who demand large fees,and Judges who are political, they all contribute to a more violent society. We need a total overhaul of the system.

Hugh
The law is a money making industry. More lawyers are being produced than doctors & nurses combined and somebody has to feed and clothe them. Prolonging cases goes a long way to solving that problem.

Garry, The Two R'd Wonder
I couldn't agree more with David. Dead on.

Frank Buchan
The only surprise is that it isn't worse. The problem isn't lawyers though, who work the system, but a system that has too many opportunities to be worked in the first place. Because recidivists make up such a large percentage of the criminal population, one wonders if maybe tossing them in jail permanently after the third serious offence would save us some, because my guessis these are the ones we rotate through the system and learn every trick necessary to delay.

PB
As a police officer I could say so much about this but in the end it really wouldnt matter. The system is broke. There is so much red tape and legal prodecures that the time it takes things to go through court is just ridiculous. In fact the syetme seems to be designed for failure. These same procedures and legal requirements set out for police are the same ones that are used to state there is a delay and create an 11b argument. It appears its a no win situation for a victim and a win win for the accused. In the end it affects us all. Its getting way out of hand.

Lart from Above
Convicted criminals should be responsible for the costs of prosecution and trial. That will encourage the guilty to plead guilty, and for some potential criminals (especially those involved in ongoing or organized crime) will be a much stronger deterrent than jail time. Make the state responsible for legal fees for those found not guilty in trial, and the government will be less likely to prosecute marginal cases.