THE LEDGER-STAR
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 13, 1994 TAG: 9409130538
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM ABRAMS, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 35 lines
The U.S. imprisonment rate has gone up 22 percent since 1989 and is now at least five times greater than that of most other industrialized nations, according to an international study.
The rate of 519 prisoners for every 100,000 Americans was topped only by Russia's 558 per 100,000 among the 52 nations surveyed by The Sentencing Project, a group that promotes alternatives to incarceration.
The study found there are 1.3 million inmates in American prisons and jails, costing the nation $26.8 billion annually. It said the 583,000 black men in prison exceeds the 537,000 black men enrolled in higher education.
And it said the doubling of the inmate population since 1980 has had little impact on violent crime. ``There is no reason to believe that continuing to build and fill more prisons will stop the crime and violence in our communities,'' said Marc Mauer, assistant director of the organization and author of the report.
Construction of new prisons is a cornerstone of the $30 billion crime bill President Clinton was signing today.
The report said black men in the United States are incarcerated at more than four times the rate of black males in South Africa - 3,822 per 100,000 vs. 851 per 100,000.
KEYWORDS: PRISON SURVEY by CNB