ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 4, 1995 TAG: 9512050024
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
The U.S. prison population, which broke the million mark in 1993, climbed this year to more than 1.1 million inmates as state and federal prisons logged their largest population increase since record-keeping began in 1923.
A report released Sunday by the Department of Justice shows the number of Americans behind bars jumped by nearly 90,000 during the 12 months ended in June, surpassing the largest previous one-year increase of 85,000 in 1989.
Some criminal justice experts bemoaned the news, warning that the nation is slaking a thirst for punishment at the expense of social programs that could stop crimes before they happen. But others pointed to the dramatically lower murder rates recorded last year in many of America's largest cities and argued that the get-tough policies of the past decade are working.
``Am I shocked and outraged that you've got a 90,000 increase? I remain very unalarmed by that,'' said Robert Bidinotto, author of the newly released book, ``Criminal Justice? The Legal System vs. Individual Responsibility.'' ``We are now scooping up the repeat and violent offenders that have been getting away for so long.''
Justice Department officials said the growth spurt reflects the continuation of a national trend toward harsher punishment for violent criminals and drug offenders, who are increasingly likely to be sentenced to prison rather than released on probation.
It also reflects an increasing willingness among state officials to build more prisons: Texas accounted for the bulk of new inmates nationally, adding 34,000 felons to its prison rolls between June 1994 and June 1995, according to the Justice Department report. The state has spent $2 billion to create space for 100,000 new prison beds since 1990 and is challenging California for title to the world's largest prison system.
The incarceration rate also set another record: The United States locks up a greater share of its residents than any other nation.
Allen Beck, chief of corrections statistics for the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, said his staff does not yet have sufficient information to explain why the number of inmates grew so much this year. In general, the nation's spiralling prison population is driven primarily by an increasing number of violent criminals behind bars, Beck said.
Since 1980, as state prison populations have more than tripled, criminals serving time for violent crimes have accounted for nearly half the increase; felons convicted of drug crimes have accounted for about a third, Beck said.
But that analysis diminishes the importance of the war on drugs, which most criminal justice experts describe as the single most important factor in rising rates of incarceration. The number of people incarcerated for drug crimes has grown far more rapidly than criminals locked up for any other reason, with drug offenders jumping from 8 percent of all state inmates in 1980 to more than a quarter of all state inmates today.
At the same time, violent criminals occupy a decreasing share of prison cells, dropping from 57 percent in 1980 to about 45 percent today.
The Associated Press contributed information to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 60 linesby CNB