Sexual assaults and organized crime murder rates are increasing across Canada while homicides victimizing Indigenous people remain disproportionally high, according to newly released figures from Statistics Canada.

According to the agency’s annual summary of incidents of crimes reported by police, more than one in five homicide victims in 2018 were Indigenous despite the fact First Nations, Métis and Inuit people account for only 5 per cent of Canada’s population.

A total of 140 Indigenous people were victims of homicide in 2018. Of those, 96 victims were male and 44 female — six more female victims than in 2017. Last year, Indigenous people were five times more likely to be victims of homicide than non-Indigenous people, found the report released Monday.

Overall, the nationwide homicide rate declined 4 per cent in 2018 after increasing in 2017.

Elsewhere, the report found the rate of police-reported sexual assaults rose nationwide for the fourth straight year, with more than 28,700 police-reported sexual assaults in 2018 — a rate of 78 per 100,000 people.

Reported sexual assault rates rose in every province and territory and Canada, except for the Northwest Territories.

That increase was due in part to a decrease in the number of alleged sexual assaults that were excluded as “unfounded” after Statistics Canada changed how it tallies crime reports. The agency last year updated its definition of a “founded” criminal incident to include cases in which there was no credible evidence to confirm an incident did not take place.

Even without the change, the rate of reported sexual assaults would have increased by between 11 and 12 per cent, something the report said was linked to a rise in reporting following the peak of the #MeToo movement.

Still, the numbers are “likely an underestimation of the true extent of sexual assault in Canada, as these types of offences often go unreported to police,” the report said.

Statistics Canada also highlighted the impact of organized crime, finding organized crime groups and street gangs were responsible for about a quarter of murders committed in Canada last year — 147, up from 138 in 2017 and 119 in 2016.

The report found organized crime groups were also especially linked to money laundering and trafficking offences: “The offences most likely to be related to organized crime or gangs were homicide (27%), laundering the proceeds of crime (25%), offences against the Excise Act (which regulates duties on alcohol, tobacco and cannabis products) (16%), and conspiracy to commit murder (15%),” it said.

There was also an increase in reports of organized crime intimidation of justice system workers and journalists, rising to 16 cases last year from 14 in 2017.

The crime figures include only those incidents that come to the attention of police, either through reports from the public or through police investigations.

An earlier Statistics Canada survey suggests fewer than one-third of crimes are reported to police.

Some other take-aways from the crime report:

Crime increased nationwide for the fourth consecutive year, as measured by both the overall crime rate and the Crime Severity Index, which measures the frequency and severity of crime in Canada. Both figures remain well below rates from a decade ago.

Reports of hate-motivated crime decreased 13 per cent last year after peaking in 2017 — with the number of hate crimes targeting Muslims notably falling by half. Despite the overall decrease, 2018 saw more reported hate crimes than in any other year since 2009.

The rate of violent crimes in which a firearm was present decreased by 5 per cent following four consecutive years of increases.

Rates of fraud, including identity theft and identity fraud, increased for the seventh straight year, with a particular increase in telephone and online scams, such as the “Canada Revenue Agency scam” and prepaid gift card scams.

Reports of criminal extortion increased in every province, a change several police services attributed to the growth of digital and electronic scams, including hostage-taking scams, the deployment of ransomware and “sextortion” — obtaining money or sexual favours by threatening to reveal material about a target’s sexual activity. Overall, the national rate of police-reported extortion rose 44 per cent and has trended upward since 2012.

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Rates of methamphetamine offences continued to rise, a factor police services said may be contributing to increases in property and violent crime.

Meanwhile, rates of cannabis offences went down for the seventh year in a row, with police reporting significant declines even before cannabis use was legalized last October.