P.E.I. sees biggest increase in incarceration rates among provinces

After seeing falling rates of incarceration for a couple of years, the rates on Prince Edward Island are starting to climb again, according to a Statistics Canada report released Thursday.

From 2010 to 2015 P.E.I. sent citizens to jail at a rate higher than the provincial average. But those rates began to fall in 2014-15, and dropped below the average in 2015-16.

They began to climb again the next year. In 2017-18 P.E.I. saw the biggest rate jump in the country. It rose to 72 per 100,000, up nine per cent.

That remains below the provincial average of 83 per 100,000.

The Island's relatively high rate of incarceration, despite a low crime rate, is typically explained by its practice of jailing impaired drivers on first conviction. The province incarcerates 90 per cent of those offenders.

In previous years, no more than 20 per cent of first-time offenders have been jailed in other provinces.

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