(Submitted/New Brunswick RCMP)
The number of police-reported sexual assaults in Canada is up for the fourth year in a row.
But a centre which helps victims does not believe we are seeing more instances of sexual assault.
Numbers released by Statistics Canada show the rate of sexual assault increased by 15 per cent in 2018.
Jennifer Richard, community development director with the Fredericton Sexual Assault Centre, believes the growing public conversation around sexual violence issues has encouraged more victims to come forward.
“We’re pretty much seeing the same amount of instances happening but more people are reporting it,” said Richard. “I know here at our centre, we’ve seen our calls triple over the last year or two.”
Definition Of ‘Founded’ Crimes Changes
Richard believes recent changes to crime reporting, which allows more opportunity for sexual assault reports to be classified as “founded”, also contributed to the increase.
In 2018, StatsCan and police forces changed the definition of “founded” criminal incidents to include cases where there is no credible evidence to confirm the reported incidents did not take place.
“The police can’t say a crime has been unfounded unless they’ve actually fully investigated the crime and that there’s evidence to say no, this didn’t take place, and here’s the evidence why,” Richard said.
Richard said sexual assault remains an underreported crime with only about five per cent of incidents being reported.
She said improvements are needed to the justice system as a whole so victims feel confident coming forward.
“It’s a very unique crime and needs to be treated very differently,” Richard said. “These are people who have been exposed to trauma and sexual trauma on top of that.”
“There’s a lot of specialization that needs to happen within the whole criminal justice system for things to improve and for the public to regain the confidence, or even gain confidence because I’m not sure they had it in the beginning … so that they feel like if they go and do report it that they’re going to have a good outcome, they’re going to get what they need out of that process.”
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