INMATE NUMBERS ARE GROWING SLOWLY

NASHVILLE -- Tennessee's inmate population is expected to swell to about
29,000 by 2010 despite a recent slowdown in growth, according to the state
Department of Correction.

"The need for additional beds is still going to be there, even though the
growth has appeared to slow," said Steve Hayes, the department's public
information officer. He said officials project an unmet need for about
1,700 beds by June 2006.

After steady increases throughout the 1990s, the growth of the state's
prison population slowed by more than half in 2000, and actually declined
for part of that year, state and federal statistics show.

Mr. Hayes said corrections officials are not sure if the slowed growth was
a one-year phenomenon or the start of a trend. He said Department of
Correction prisons are operating at about 95 percent capacity, and
officials still are trying to decide where to build a 1,700-bed
medium-security prison that has been in the planning stages for three years.

A report released this month by the U.S. Justice Department said the slowed
growth of Tennessee's state inmate population in 2000 mirrors a nationwide
trend.

"It had to flatten out at some point," said Gary Jensen, a sociology
professor at Vanderbilt University and a fellow of the American Society of
Criminology. "The combination of the 'Three strikes and you're out'
(sentencing for habitual felons) and mandatory sentencing escalated the
prison population over the last couple of decades, but it had to top out
eventually."

The slowing growth in prison populations began around 1995 and comes as
crime rates drop nationally, according to the Justice Department report.

From 1990 to 1999, Tennessee's inmate population in state prisons and
local jails grew by 11,778 inmates, an increase of 113 percent, with an
average annual increase of 7.9 percent, the federal report said.

In fiscal 2000-01, Tennessee's state inmate population grew from 22,539
inmates to 23,062, an increase of 2.3 percent. For the last six months of
2000 the inmate population decreased 1.5 percent, according to federal and
Tennessee Department of Correction statistics.

On average, the nation's federal and state prison population grew 6 percent
annually through the 1990s -- from 1.148 million inmates in 1990 to 1.933
million in 2000 -- but grew by only 1.3 percent in 2000. Tennessee has 399
prisoners for every 100,000 residents, while the national average is 478,
federal statistics show.

State Rep. Phillip Pinion, D-Union City, chairman of the Tennessee General
Assembly's Corrections Oversight Committee, said he was not surprised by
the report's findings.

"The Board of Probation and Parole is working extra hard to try to keep
those whose crimes may be on the border of prison, the nonviolent
first-time offenders, from going behind the walls," Rep. Pinion said. "When
it's a first-time young offender, once they get behind that wall, if they
have to stay a long time, they're going to come out a hardened criminal
because that's what it takes for them to survive."

The caseload for the state Board of Probation and Parole increased from
34,251 parolees and probationers in fiscal 1995-96, an average of 82 cases
per parole officer, to 41,526 parolees and probationers at the end of
fiscal 2000-01, an average of 99 cases per officer. No new parole officers
have been hired, said Donna Blackburn, the board's executive director.

Meanwhile, the number of felons on community corrections has increased from
4,162 in 1999 to 4,736 at the end of May 2001, an increase of 13.7 percent,
Ms. Blackburn said.

Community corrections, in place in Tennessee since 1985, allows convicted
felons to avoid prison by serving their sentences at home, where they can
continue to work. They are subjected to random and mandatory drug testing,
electronic monitoring and must abide by strict curfews.

Rep. Pinion said the state's recent fiscal problems and trickling revenue
stream have prompted a renewed effort to channel convicted felons to
less-costly alternatives to prison, including community corrections.

"There is a greater emphasis on community corrections because it is so much
cheaper, and with the budget problems we have now we're trying to save
every dollar we can," he said. "Our operating costs for community
corrections are about $5 a day per inmate, compared with about $45 a day
for each prison inmate."

Professor Jensen said the declines in crime and the subsequent drop in
inmate populations in the South may lag behind national trends because
economies of Southern states are outpacing other regions of the country,
attracting younger people to the region and creating more instability in
the population.