P.E.I. violent crime rate jumps 16%, once more above the national average

A big increase in the violent crime rate on P.E.I. in 2023 pushed it significantly above the national average for the first time in almost 20 years.

The rate increase is partly due to a continuing trend of more crime happening through the internet, but there was also a big increase in assaults, which had been on a downward trend.

Violent crime rates fell across Canada in the early years of this century, bottoming out around 2015, when they began climbing again.

This pattern was exaggerated on P.E.I. In 2003, the number of violent crimes per 100,000 population was 1,819.65, well above the national rate of 1,434.79. But the Island rate began to fall rapidly, crashing to 749.24 in 2015. The national rate was also falling, but its low point was 1,044.23.

Both rates turned around about that time, but P.E.I's climbed more steeply, reaching the national average again in 2019. It stayed around the national level during the pandemic, but in 2023 the rate jumped 16.1 per cent in a single year. At 1,605.41, it was 12 per cent above the national average.

Those more dramatic changes are not unexpected when measuring a smaller population, said Simon Fraser University criminology Prof. Martin Andresen, because it takes fewer incidents to make a change in the rate.

"It's consistent with the rest of the country," said Andresen. "You don't see the big jumps on the national level that you do with a smaller province like P.E.I., just because it takes a lot more to move the national numbers over time."

But that is not to say there's no cause for concern. While rates are still lower than they were 20 years ago, they are trending upward.

The overall trend in crime over the last 20 years follows a simple down and up curve, but a look at which particular crimes are more and less frequent reveals a very complicated picture.

Excluding theft and mischief, for virtually all of this century, and likely throughout the last century as well, the most common criminal offence on P.E.I. has been assault, Level 1, also referred to as simple or common assault. This offence covers a wide variety of actions, from aggressive behaviour to physical contact, but generally does not include physical injury.

But in 2021, the rate of this level of assault on P.E.I. was surpassed by the rate for fraud, and fraud held that position in 2022 and 2023.

The growth in fraud was part of a trend in crime facilitated by the internet, often perpetrated against Islanders by people who don't live in the province.

That included crimes such as extortion, almost non-existent on P.E.I. from 2006 to 2012 before growing exponentially in the last few years. The rate almost doubled in 2023, up to 52.36 incidents per 100,000 residents.

Other crimes using the internet, some of which may be chalked up to local perpetrators, are also rising.