What Auto Theft Conviction Rates Tell Us About Our Justice System

Are Canadian courts overburdened by too much law?

All the way back in March, I wrote about Canada’s car theft problem. In particular, I wanted to know whether the half-dozen or so anti-car theft operations launched by various police forces in Ontario had made any difference.

As I noted in that post, some stolen cars were, in fact, recovered and there were a couple of hundred arrests. But when we last looked, theft rates were still rising and, increasingly, were accompanied by violent carjackings and home invasions.

The good news is that, for whatever reason, the trend has since reversed. The graph below represents Toronto Police Services auto theft statistics up to the end of June 2024. You can clearly see that we’re moving in the right direction.

The larger problem back in March was that I couldn’t find evidence that any car theft charges had resulted in convictions - or even made it to trial. Worse still, court records revealed that more than a few of those arrested had subsequently dropped out of the system and disappeared.

I recently discovered some Statistics Canada data that covers exactly those concerns.

In fact, many car theft charges did reach court and, of those, a significant number achieved convictions and sentencing. As we’ll see however, the reasons behind those cases that never concluded are, if anything, the real story here.

Across Canada - during the first fiscal quarter of 2024 - 295 adult court cases involving charges of car theft reached their conclusions. Of those, 55.2 percent ended with a guilty verdict And of those, 51.9 percent resulted in a custodial sentence. That means only 29 percent of the people initially charged with car theft ended up in prison. The comparable rate in Ontario - where nearly half of all Canadian car theft charges were filed - was just 23 percent.

I’m not sure whether or not diverting convicted car thieves away from incarceration is a good idea. For all I know, allowing for alternatives in the right scenarios might make for better long term outcomes. But I do know that a 55.2 percent conviction rate sounds low. Why subject so many people to the horrors of the court system if they’re as likely as not to go free? Does this suggest that either the police or prosecutors aren’t doing their jobs right?

There was also data to help us understand the problem of accused individuals who disappear. Out of a national total of 156,541 cases (all offences) reaching completion, 3,069 were for “fail to appear.” Of those, 27 percent were found guilty. That doesn’t tell us how often offenders go “off-grid” or even how many of those are eventually caught and prosecuted. But we can see that the numbers aren’t negligible.

In any case, there’s another bad guy here: Jordan. Jordan? I’m referring to the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2016 decision in R v Jordan, which established a presumptive ceiling for the time between charges and trial in Canadian courts.

The Jordan limit states that, if a provincial court trial stretches on beyond 18 months, we’ll assume that the accused’s Charter rights to timely justice have been violated. The limit for superior court trials or trials that include preliminary inquiries is 30 months. It’s common for cases that exceed Jordan limits to be stayed or withdrawn.

“How common?” I can hear you asking. Well Statistics Canada tells us that 8.8 percent of those 295 car theft cases we’ve been looking at passed the Jordan limit and, of those, 53.8 percent were stayed or withdrawn. Nearly 12 percent of Ontario’s cases similarly cross the Jordan.

So a big part of the story here is that our court system is way over capacity. The primary cause, of course, is that there are too many criminals. And, no doubt, we also lack sufficient judges, court officials, and available courtroom time.

But is it also possible that our criminal law system has grown so complicated that the whole justice infrastructure in being crushed beneath the weight? (I hope to explore some examples of legal bloat in a future post.)

Anyone here have experience they’d care to share?