2024 Intimate Partner Violence preliminary statistics shows a consistent increase

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, January 22, 2025   3:12 pm

(Ottawa)—Today, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) is releasing preliminary annual statistics for 2024 showing that 6,636 Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) incidents were reported resulting in 3,355 charges laid that year. Further charges may be laid as some of the incidents reported in 2024 remain under investigation. On average, the Service receives 18 calls for service related to IPV incidents per day.

In 2023, there were 6,547 incidents of Intimate Partner Violence reported, and 3,820 charges laid. It should be noted that OPS crime data is related to all incidents of IPV and as such victims, both male & female, are represented here.

The most prevalent violations in 2024 were:

• Assault-Partner Level 1
• Breach Under Recognizance-Partner
• Assault w/Weapon or CBH Level 2
• Harass Communications-Partner
• Threats Utter to Persons-Partner

Demographics of victims in partner related offenses are as follows:

Per age group:

• 7% were under the age of 18;
• 28% were between 18-29 years old;
• 48% were between 30-45 years old;
• 14% were between 46-59 years old;
• 3% were over the age of 60.

Per gender:

• 79% identified as female;
• 20.5% identified as male;
• 0.5% unknown.

In 2024, the Ottawa Police Service continued to prioritize Violence Against Women (VAW) and introduced new initiatives such as two new Risk Navigator positions for Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) as well as being the first police service in Canada to use the term femicide* to describe the killing of a woman or girl. There were three femicides in Ottawa last year.

In 2025, key initiatives are set to launch to ensure the Service continues to prioritize trauma-informed and victim-centered care when dealing with high risk and vulnerable victims, namely:

• Victim Choice reporting;
• New Risk assessment tool for patrol; and
• Language interpretation application.

“In our continued commitment to bring awareness to the increased rates of violence against women in our city, the Ottawa Police will be releasing annual and semi-annual statistics on Intimate Partner Violence moving forward,” said Deputy Chief Trish Ferguson. “Violence against women and gender-based violence (GBV) is an epidemic which affects us all and we are hoping that by releasing this information, we can shed light on the realities facing women and girls in our communities.

“We have seen a consistent increase since 2021 and believe that being transparent about the rates of violence being experienced by women in our communities is important in order to raise awareness of this deadly issue and create a safe space for an open dialogue,” added Melanie Winwood, Senior Advisor-Violence Against Women (VAW).

* Femicide definition: A femicide is generally defined as “the killing of women and girls because of their gender” often driven by stereotyped gender roles, discrimination towards women and girls or unequal power relations between women and men. The Ottawa Police Service also builds on the definition recommended by our Violence Against Women (VAW) community partners as “the misogynist killing of women and girls because of their gender, overwhelmingly committed by men.” 

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 Through the Community Safety Data portal data.ottawapolice.ca, members of the public can view, download, and interact with data released by the Ottawa Police Service.

Media note: Melanie Winwood, Senior Advisor-Violence Against Women, is available for media interviews upon request. Please contact us at media.relations@ottawapolice.ca.

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