Murders of women, because they are women, lead to longer prison sentences than other types of homicides, Statistics Canada found.
After a detailed analysis of all sentences imposed on murderers in Canada from 2009 to 2021, the federal statistics agency calculated that the average sentence length for “gender-related” homicides of women or girls — after The granting of credit for time spent in pretrial detention — was 12.5 years.
For other types of homicides, sentences were shorter: 9.2 years on average for adults convicted of the “non-gender-related” homicide of a woman and 6.1 years on average for adults convicted guilty of the murder of a man or boy.
Statistics Canada defines a “gender-related homicide” as a murder committed by a male who killed an intimate partner or family member, or killed a woman after sexually assaulting her, or who killed a sex worker.
The federal agency also noted that gender-related homicides are more likely to result in a guilty verdict than other types of murders.
We report here a proportion of 58% of guilty verdicts compared to 50% for other types of murders.
And of those who were convicted of killing a woman because they were women, 93% received a custodial sentence, a proportion similar to other types of homicides.
To watch on video