Summary and Review

aggravating factors: these are factors that are considered by the sentencing judge that would increase the crime’s severity and would result in a more severe punishment. Examples of aggravating factors include previous criminal record for the same crime; use of a weapon; offence motivated by bias, prejudice or hate (based on race, sex, religion, age, sexual orientation or gender identity, or any similar factor); offence was committed against the offender’s intimate partner or family; the offence was committed against a person under the age of eighteen; offence was committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a criminal organisation; the offence was a terrorism offence; or the offence had significant impact on the victim’s health and financial situation.

assault: when a person intentionally applies force, directly or indirectly, to another person without their consent.

break and enter: entering someone else’s property with the intention of committing an indictable offence.

causation: when the change in one variable is the direct result of a change in another variable.

consensus: societal agreement on shared values and norms.

correlation: when two or more variables are associated with one another. The direction of the association is known when two variables are correlated. A positive correlation means that as one variable increases, so does the other, or as one decreases, the other decreases. A negative correlation means that as one increases, the other decreases, and vice versa. Correlation does not guarantee causality.

dark figure of crime: crime that goes undetected, unreported or unrecorded and is not included in official crime data sources.

designer drugs: drugs that are created in underground or secret labs by changing the chemical properties of other pre-existing drugs.

deviance: behaviour that departs from or violates social norms.

first degree murder: planned and deliberate homicide.

identity fraud: when an offender takes a person’s personal information (e.g., credit card information) and uses it to make purchases in that person’s name or evade law enforcement through use of their identity.

identity theft: when a person steals another person’s identity with the intention of committing an indictable offence that includes fraud or falsehood.

manslaughter: non-intentional homicide resulting from intoxication, recklessness, or negligence (e.g., two people in a bar get in a fight and one kills the other by accident).

mass murder: involves the killing of more than three people in a single event.

mitigating factors: factors that decrease the severity of an offence in the eyes of the criminal justice system.

potlach: a First Nation ceremony that consisted of feasting, gift-giving, property distribution, witnessing, and the affirmation or reaffirmation of social status. This ceremony is part of Coast Salish and western coastal First Nations throughout Canada and the US.

prostitution: the exchange of sexual services for payment or material benefit.

robbery: the use of force or violence, or threat of force or violence, during the commission of theft.

second degree murder: intentional homicide that lacks the element of pre-planning and may occur in the heat of the moment.

serial murder: when a person kills several victims in three or more separate events.

sexual assault: any unwanted sexual contact that violates a person’s sexual integrity, committed without voluntary consent.

theft: the fraudulent and intentional taking or converting of someone else’s property, without lawful authority, with the intent to deprive the owner of it temporarily or absolutely.

typology: a system of classification.