PRISON NUMBERS PROVING COSTLY

WASHINGTON -- America's prison population grew again in 2002 despite a
declining crime rate, costing the federal government and states an
estimated $40 billion a year at a time of rampant budget shortfalls. The
inmate population in 2002 of more than 2.1 million represented a 2.6
percent increase over 2001, according to a report released Sunday by the
Bureau of Justice Statistics. Preliminary FBI statistics showed a 0.2
percent drop in crime during the same span.

Experts say mandatory sentences, especially for nonviolent drug offenders,
are a major reason inmate populations have risen for 30 years. About one of
every 143 U.S. residents was in the federal, state or local custody at
year's end.

"The nation needs to break the chains of our addiction to prison and find
less costly and more effective policies like treatment," said Will Harrell,
executive director of the Texas American Civil Liberties Union. Others say
tough sentencing laws, such as the "three strikes" laws that can put repeat
offenders behind bars for life, are a chief reason for the drop in crime.

The cost of housing, feeding and caring for a prison inmate is roughly
$20,000 per year, or about $40 billion nationwide using 2002 figures,
according to The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization that promotes
alternatives to prison.

Other key points in the report:

As of Dec. 31, 97,491 women were in state or federal prisons, or about 6.8
percent of all inmates and one in every 1,656 women. There were more than
1.3 million male inmates, or about one in 110 men.

About 10 percent of all black men between 25 and 29 were incarcerated last
year, compared with 1.2 percent of white men and 2.4 percent of Hispanic
men. Overall, the 586,700 black men in prison outnumbered both the 436,800
white males and 235,000 Hispanic males. Black males account for about 45
percent of all inmates serving a sentence longer than a year.

Privately operated prisons held 93,771 inmates, about 5.8 percent of state
prisoners and 12.4 percent of those in federal jurisdictions.

At year's end 2002, the federal government held 8,748 people at immigration
detention facilities, 2,377 at military jails and 16,206 in U.S.
territorial prisons.