THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 4, 1995 TAG: 9512040063
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
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 U.S. Department of Justice shows the number of people behind bars jumped by nearly 90,000 during the 12 months ending 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.
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: According to the report, Texas accounted for the bulk of new inmates nationally, adding 34,000 felons to its prison rolls between June 1994 and June 1995. The state has spent $2 billion to construct 100,000 new prison beds since 1990.
Michigan claims the nation's sixth-largest prison population, with about 41,000 inmates. The state had one of the 10 slowest-growing prison populations during the period studied, increasing by only 3 percent.
Washington, D.C., leads five jurisdictions that reported falling prison populations. The number of inmates in the District of Columbia's prison in Lorton, Va., dropped by 5 percent to about 10,500 during the period studied, the report said.
Allen Beck, co-author of the study and the bureau's chief of corrections statistics, cited stiff mandatory sentences for drug and violent crimes and an increased likelihood of being imprisoned once arrested have caused the increase.
During the same period in state prisons, violent criminals, most convicted of aggravated assault, accounted for 40 percent and drug criminals for nearly 31 percent of the growth in state prison populations, Beck said.
There is also 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 jailed for drug crimes has grown far more rapidly than the number of 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 transformation has been even more dramatic in the federal prison system, where drug offenders have increased 1,000 percent since 1980 and now comprise more than half of all federal inmates, Beck said. Between 1980 and 1993, drug offenders grew from 25 percent to 60 percent of all federal inmates. MEMO: The Associated Press also contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
IN VIRGINIA
The inmate population in state and federal corrections
institutions increased 10 percent from June 30, 1994, to June 30,
1995, increasing from 24,822 to 27,310. Of every 100,000 state
residents, 412 are people serving terms longer than 1 year.
KEYWORDS: PRISON POPULATION INMATE STATISTICS U.S DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE JAIL < by CNB