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.…