This is the second in The Fraser Institute series on crime in Canada. The purpose of this primer is to describe the kinds of crime to which Canadians are exposed, who is at risk for those crimes, who commits them, some of the costs the victims face, and some of the expenditures we make to prevent crime. To understand what changes we may want to make in our criminal justice system, it is important to see the overall patterns of crime and punishment, how they have evolved and what they have cost.