The Newfoundland & Labrador Public Record

Violence against children

Offences in the Criminal Code that apply only where the victim is a child. Figures below are for 2025.

154 Reported to police 28 per 100,000 people
73 Led to a charge 47 in 100 reports
65 People charged 13 per 100,000 aged 12+
— Finished in court Not published for this category.
Someone charged 73 Solved another way 12 No one charged 69

36 further reports, 18.9 per cent of all reports received, were judged not to have happened. They are not counted above.

2007 to 2025

Counts Per 100,000 people
0 63 125 188 2502007 — No one charged: 32008 — Someone charged: 32008 — Solved another way: 12008 — No one charged: 82009 — Someone charged: 202009 — Solved another way: 42009 — No one charged: 282010 — Someone charged: 352010 — Solved another way: 152010 — No one charged: 442011 — Someone charged: 302011 — Solved another way: 52011 — No one charged: 442012 — Someone charged: 332012 — Solved another way: 72012 — No one charged: 342013 — Someone charged: 272013 — Solved another way: 72013 — No one charged: 422014 — Someone charged: 412014 — Solved another way: 142014 — No one charged: 472015 — Someone charged: 542015 — Solved another way: 22015 — No one charged: 452016 — Someone charged: 662016 — Solved another way: 112016 — No one charged: 512017 — Someone charged: 792017 — Solved another way: 52017 — No one charged: 532018 — Someone charged: 692018 — Solved another way: 62018 — No one charged: 472019 — Someone charged: 652019 — Solved another way: 42019 — No one charged: 862020 — Someone charged: 672020 — Solved another way: 82020 — No one charged: 832021 — Someone charged: 1072021 — Solved another way: 152021 — No one charged: 1242022 — Someone charged: 1042022 — Solved another way: 112022 — No one charged: 862023 — Someone charged: 592023 — Solved another way: 122023 — No one charged: 1112024 — Someone charged: 702024 — Solved another way: 22024 — No one charged: 902025 — Someone charged: 732025 — Solved another way: 122025 — No one charged: 692007200920112013201520172019202120232025
Someone charged 73 Solved another way 12 No one charged 69

Each bar is the year's total reports. The segments show what happened: a charge was laid, the case was solved another way, or no one was charged.

Figures beside each colour are for 2025. This view always shows counts, whichever measure is selected above.

Which offences make this up, 2025

Sexual interference90 90
Luring a child via a computer20 20
Invitation to sexual touching18 18
Making sexually explicit material available to children13 13
Agreement or arrangement - sexual offence against child8 8
Sexual exploitation5 5

Select any offence to see it year by year on its own.

What to know about these figures

These figures come from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey, a census of crimes reported to and founded by police. They count what police recorded, not everything that happened. Self-reported victimization surveys consistently find most crime is never reported to police; for sexual assault the reported share was about 6 percent in 2019.

Incidents, charges, and court outcomes come from two separate surveys (UCR and the Integrated Criminal Court Survey) that cannot be linked case by case. Read the stages as four measurements of the same system in the same year, not as one group of cases followed from report to verdict.

In January 2018 the definition of a founded incident changed: an incident is now counted as founded unless there is credible evidence that it did not occur. This raised recorded counts across many offence types. Comparisons that cross 2018 should note it.

Newfoundland and Labrador is policed by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and the RCMP. UCR coverage of the provincial population is 100 percent.

The child-specific violation codes that make up this group did not exist in the UCR survey before April 2008. On 2008-04-01, seven codes took effect simultaneously: sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, sexual exploitation, incest, corrupting morals of a child, luring a child via a computer, and bestiality (commit or compel). Sexual exploitation of a person with a disability followed on 2008-05-01. Making sexually explicit material available to children was added on 2012-08-09. These replaced the catch-all "Other Sexual Crimes," which expired 2008-03-31. The underlying Criminal Code offences existed before the coding change; what changed was how police reported them to the survey. Values before 2008 are recorded as zero and reflect the absence of the category, not the absence of offending. The comparable series starts in 2008; even the 2008 figure covers only nine months of the new codes.

This group counts only Criminal Code violations specific to child victims. Sexual assault (which is not age-specific) and child sexual abuse and exploitation material offences are counted in other groups, so this is not a total of all offences involving children.

The series starts in 2007 because that is the first year this category appears in the survey. Earlier years are left out rather than drawn as zero.

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