New Statistics Canada figures show 56,956 young Canadians were charged with crimes in the year to 31 March 2026 — well below the 2019–20 peak. But the composition of youth crime has shifted, and that is the part the headline number hides.
Statistics Canada has published its count of criminal charges against Canadians aged 12 to 17 for the year running 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. The total is 56,956. Property and violent offences drove the increase reported this year, and the figures were reported by Adriana Fallico for Global News on 12 August 2026.
Numbers like these are almost always presented as a single verdict — youth crime is up, or youth crime is down — and almost always deserve better. Read across the years, this dataset says something more specific and more useful: the volume of youth crime has fallen substantially since before the pandemic, while the mix has moved away from property offences and toward offences against the person. Those two facts point to different policy responses, and conflating them produces bad ones.
The numbers, as reported
For 2025–26, the charges break down as follows:
- 22,042 youth charged with crimes against the person (violent offences) — 15,531 male, 5,002 female
- Nearly 13,000 charged with crimes against property — nearly 10,000 male, 2,301 female
- 6,684 charged with other Criminal Code offences
- More than 1,000 traffic charges
An editorial note on arithmetic: these categories do not add up to 56,956, and readers should not expect them to. The published breakdown covers the largest offence groups, not every category — drug offences and offences under other federal statutes sit outside the four listed above. Similarly, the sex breakdowns within each category fall slightly short of the category totals, which is normal in police-reported data where sex is sometimes not recorded. We flag this because a great deal of online commentary about crime statistics consists of people finding a gap like this and concluding that the data has been manipulated. It has not. It is simply incomplete by design.
The table: what actually changed
| Measure | Earlier figure | Latest figure | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total youth offences / charges, Canada | 74,551 (2019–20 peak) | 56,956 (2025–26) | −23.6% |
| Property charges, Canada | 18,024 (2019–20) | ~13,000 (2025–26) | −28% |
| Property charges — pandemic trough to now | 7,227 (2022–23) | ~13,000 (2025–26) | +80% |
| Calgary: youth property incidents | 1,151 (2014) | 674 (2024) | −41% |
| Calgary: youth violent offences | 685 (2014) | 1,218 (2024) | +78% |
| Youth accused, Canada (long trend) | 2009 | 2019 | −51% |
| Youth crime severity index, Canada | 2009 | 2019 | −43% |
| Quebec youth crime severity index | 10 years ago | today | +71% |
Source: Statistics Canada and Calgary Police Service figures as reported by Global News, 12 August 2026. Percentage changes calculated by Raw POV from those figures. The 2025–26 property figure is reported as “nearly 13,000”, so the percentages against it are approximate.
Three things the table shows that the headline does not
1. The pandemic trough was not a trend
Property charges against youth fell to 7,227 in 2022–23 — extraordinarily low by any historical standard. Interpreted at the time as a decline in youth offending, it now looks like what it most likely was: an artefact of closed schools, closed shops, restricted movement and reduced opportunity. Property offending has since climbed roughly 80% off that floor.
But — and this is the point that gets lost — it has climbed back to a level still below where it was in 2019–20. Anyone comparing 2026 to 2022 sees an alarming surge. Anyone comparing 2026 to 2019 sees a continued decline. Both are looking at the same data. Choosing 2022 as your baseline is a choice, and it is the choice that produces the scarier number.
2. Calgary shows the composition shift more clearly than the national figures
Over a full decade, Calgary’s youth property incidents fell 41% while youth violent offences rose 78%. That is not a rise in youth crime. It is a substitution within it — fewer thefts and break-ins, more offences against people — and the two have almost opposite policy implications. Property crime responds to opportunity, deterrence and economic conditions. Violence among adolescents tends to track other things entirely: exposure to violence, school disengagement, mental health service gaps, and the presence or absence of adults.
The Calgary Police Service also reports that roughly half of youth offenders there are repeat offenders — a concentration that matters enormously for what works. When half the volume comes from a small recurring group, broad deterrence measures aimed at all young people are, almost by definition, aimed mostly at the wrong ones.
3. Violent charges now outnumber property charges — and we cannot say how new that is
In 2025–26, 22,042 youth were charged with offences against the person against nearly 13,000 charged with property offences: a ratio of roughly 1.7 to 1.
Here we have to stop, because the honest answer is that the published reporting gives a national property figure for 2019–20 but no comparable national violent figure for the same year. That means the long-run national trend in youth violent charges cannot be calculated from these numbers. Calgary points one way. Quebec’s 71% rise in its youth crime severity index over a decade points the same way. Neither is national evidence. Anyone telling you confidently that youth violence has surged across Canada is going beyond what this release supports.
The gender gap is not the same for every offence
One quiet detail in the breakdown is worth pulling out. Among youth charged with property offences, the male-to-female ratio is roughly 4.3 to 1. Among those charged with violent offences, it is roughly 3.1 to 1.
Boys are charged more often in both categories, by a wide margin. But the gap is meaningfully narrower for violence than for property crime — meaning girls make up a larger share of the violent-offence population than of the property-offence population. Youth violence prevention programming that is designed around an implicit male subject is, on these numbers, designing for about three-quarters of the problem.
How to read the next set of numbers
- Check the baseline year. Any comparison to 2020–22 will overstate increases. Compare to 2019 or to a ten-year average.
- Distinguish charges from offending. These are police-reported charges. They move with policing intensity, diversion policy and reporting behaviour as well as with underlying behaviour.
- Separate property from violence. They are different problems with different causes and different solutions.
- Watch the repeat-offender share. It is the single most useful number for deciding whether a response should be broad or targeted.
- Treat provincial figures as provincial. Quebec’s severity index and Calgary’s incident counts describe Quebec and Calgary.
The most defensible summary of this release is unglamorous: over fifteen years, far fewer young Canadians are being charged with crimes than used to be. Within that smaller total, violence has become a larger share of what remains, concentrated in a recurring minority. That is a real problem, and it is a different problem from a youth crime wave.
Frequently asked questions
How many Canadian youth were charged with crimes in 2025–26?
56,956 young people aged 12 to 17 were charged in the year from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026, according to Statistics Canada figures reported by Global News.
Is youth crime rising or falling in Canada?
Both, depending on the timeframe. Total youth charges are about 24% below the 2019–20 peak of 74,551, and youth accused fell 51% between 2009 and 2019. But property charges have risen roughly 80% from their 2022–23 pandemic low, and some regions report sharp increases in violent offences.
What kinds of crimes are Canadian youth charged with?
In 2025–26, 22,042 youth were charged with crimes against the person, nearly 13,000 with property crimes, 6,684 with other Criminal Code offences and more than 1,000 with traffic offences.
Which regions show the biggest increases?
Quebec’s youth crime severity index has risen 71% over the past decade, trending upward since 2015. In Calgary, youth violent offences rose from 685 in 2014 to 1,218 in 2024, while youth property incidents fell from 1,151 to 674 over the same period.
How many youth offenders reoffend?
The Calgary Police Service reports that approximately 50% of youth offenders in Calgary are repeat offenders.
Sources and method
All underlying figures come from Statistics Canada and the Calgary Police Service as reported by Adriana Fallico for Global News on 12 August 2026, available here. All percentage changes, ratios and the comparison table were calculated by Raw POV from those reported figures and are labelled as such; where a figure is reported as an approximation (“nearly 13,000”, “nearly 10,000”), the derived percentages are approximate. Raw POV has flagged, rather than smoothed over, the two places where the published breakdown does not reconcile to the totals and the one place where a national trend cannot be calculated from the available data. No figure in this article has been estimated, projected or filled in.
Read more from Raw POV: our Society coverage.
