The ACT has the lowest imprisonment rate in the country even as its jail overflowed in recent weeks, new prison data shows.
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics' latest quarterly figures found the average number of full-time prisoners in Australia surged 7 per cent in the past year to reach an all-time high of 35,467 in the March quarter.
The data, issued on Thursday, showed the ACT's imprisonment rate of 112 inmates per 100,000 adults jumped from 110 prisoners a year ago but remained the lowest in the country.
The territory recorded the lowest annual imprisonment rate of any Australian jurisdiction for the past three years.
The latest figures reflected the Alexander Maconochie Centre's chronic overcrowding problem, which forced the first group of prisoners to be transferred to a temporary facility when the jail reached capacity last week.
Prisoner numbers rose from 343 in December to 347 in March. That figure had climbed from 329 prisoners in March last year.
Corrections Minister Shane Rattenbury said last Thursday up to 22 prisoners would be transferred to Symonston Correctional Facility.
The centre, which sits on Mugga Lane, was previously only used for weekend detention until the government spent $60,000 on upgrades to allow for full-time detention when the jail overflowed.
Mr Rattenbury announced in April the temporary prison would provide an extra 22 beds to help authorities cope with inmate numbers until permanent upgrades were ready at the prison.
The average number of detainees at the AMC had risen from 275 in 2012, to 294 in 2013, and to 336 last year.
It forced the government to take urgent steps to temporarily boost the capacity of the prison from 332 to 366 beds, while fast-tracking a $54 million expansion project to add 110 beds to the Hume facility by mid-2016.
The March quarter data also showed a boost in the ACT's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander imprisonment rate, from 1293 prisoners per 100,000 adults in March 2014 to 1499 inmates this year.
That increase in the territory's imprisonment rate was against a 7 per cent increase in Indigenous prisoners nationally.
