Aboriginals three times more likely to be victims of violent crime

Violent crime and spousal abuse hit aboriginal Canadians much harder than non-native Canadians, says a recently-released study prepared by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics for Statistics Canada.

Being a young aboriginal woman increases the risk of being a victim even further, while being a young aboriginal man increases the chance of becoming a violent offender.

Overall, the higher levels of violent crime in First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities are associated with being young, having limited education, being unemployed, having a low income, being a member of a single-parent family, and living in crowded conditions.

“A person’s age has been found to be one of the strongest risk factors for both offending and victimization,” the survey says.

Overall, the survey found the odds of being the victim of violent crime are about three times higher for aboriginal Canadians. One in four survey participants said they had been a victim of crime at least once in the year before the survey was conducted.

The analysis of 24,000 interviews and other statistics in “Victimization and offending among the Aboriginal Population in Canada” also revealed:

* Most violent offenders and their victims know each other;
* Most violent incidents occur at home;
* One in three violent incidents involves a weapon and causes injury;
* Alcohol or drugs are involved in a majority of violent incidents and in nearly all murders.
* Overall, the survey participants’ physical assault rate was three-and-a-half times higher than for non-native Canadians.

Young aboriginal women face a special risk, and spousal violence by current or former partners is more than three times higher than for non-native Canadians.

The abuse is also likely to be more violent in First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities.

Twice as many aboriginal women who are victims of spousal abuse suffer “the most severe forms of spousal violence, such as being beaten, choked, threatened with or had a gun or knife used against them or sexually assaulted.”

One in three female victims of spousal abuse said they “feared for their lives” — compared to one in five among non-natives.

More First Nations, Métis and Inuit are also killed than non-aboriginals, and men are most at risk of being killed.

The average homicide rate for non-natives in Canada is 1.3 per 100,000 residents.

In 2005, five Nunavimmiut died by homicide among a regional population of only 10,000, which means the average homicide rate in Nunavik is 50 times higher than for non-native Canadians.

Most aboriginal victims were shot, stabbed or beaten to death.

And most convicted aboriginal killers are re-offenders, male and nearly all were under the influence.

On the positive side, the survey found that aboriginal people are well aware about the problems in their communities and they still manage to hang on to “relatively low levels of fear of crime.”

Canada produces a study on victimization in aboriginal communities every five years.

The most recent survey was conducted in 2004. The survey did not include results from the territories.