U.S. FIGURES SHOW PRISON POPULATION IS NOW STABILIZING

After growing explosively for three decades, the nation's prison
population has begun to stabilize, according to new government figures.

For the first time in years, the overcrowding that has plagued state
prisons and local jails alike is beginning to ease, as a result of
falling crime rates and a decade of new construction.

Through the middle of last year, the number of state prisoners grew
by only 1.5 percent, the lowest annual increase in 29 years, according
to figures recently compiled by the United States Department of
Justice. In the three most populous states, the number of prisoners in
California and New York actually fell last year, and the number in
Texas grew by only half of 1 percent.

Nine other states -- including New Jersey -- also reported a decline,
the largest number of states to do so in two decades. Connecticut's
prison population grew 1.4 percent.

Government officials and other experts in the field say there are
several reasons for the slowing growth, but the most important is that
the prison system is finally experiencing the benefits of the decline
in crime rates that began in the mid-1990's.

Before the crime rates fell, many states had begun toughening their
criminal justice systems, imposing longer minimum sentences for a
wider spectrum of crimes and ending parole. The average sentence
increased by 13 percent during the 90's, and with more prisoners
staying behind bars longer, it took several years for the drop in
crime to be reflected in the prison population numbers.

"The reason we saw those increasing numbers every year was because of
the sentencing reforms undertaken by so many states," said Allen J.
Beck, the chief of corrections statistics for the Justice Department,
who compiled the new figures. "In the 90's, there was a much greater
chance that violent offenders would be incarcerated, and would stay
longer. But those reforms had their effect, and now we're finally
starting to see the prison population stabilize."

The drop in crime was not directly related to the increased
sentencing; a variety of studies have shown no relationship between
the length of sentencing in a state and its crime rate. Rather,
criminologists say, many of the tough sentences imposed earlier in the
decade began to run their course at the same time as the crime rate
continued to decline.

During that same period, many states with corrections systems that
became overwhelmed by the new prisoners also began experimenting with
alternative sentencing -- special drug courts and diversionary
programs for drug users that are starting to have an effect on
reducing inmate populations. By more closely supervising convicts on
parole, states have kept many of them from returning.

"Forty percent of the people walking through our prison doors were
parole violators, mostly who had relapsed into drug use," said Martin
F. Horn, who was the secretary of corrections in Pennsylvania for six
years until earlier this year.

"So we started a system that put them in an intensive treatment
program inside prison for six months, then put them back on the street
under close supervision, Mr. Horn said. "Now our prison population has
been flat for three years, which we hadn't seen since before 1980."

In addition to California, New York and New Jersey, the other states
that reported declines in prisoners were Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and South Carolina.

State prisoners represent about 60 percent of all people incarcerated
in the United States. The growth in the number of jail inmates --
usually people held for a year or less, representing 32 percent of
those incarcerated -- has also been flat in the last two years, which
is considered a more direct reflection of the drop in crime.

"Jails are the most immediate beneficiary of the crime decline,
because their sentences are shorter," said Alfred Blumstein, a
professor of criminology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,
who studies crime statistics. "Typically, at least half the people in
jail are awaiting trial, and as the crime rates declined, trials can
occur faster."

But the trend has not held true in the federal prison system, which
grew by 11 percent last year, mostly due to mandatory drug sentencing
and the federal takeover of prisoners from the District of Columbia.
Federal prisons remain considerably more crowded, on average, than
state prisons or local jails.

One reason for that is the boom in prison and local jail construction
during the 1980's and 90's, which doubled the number of state prisons,
though it was not matched at the federal level. Between 1990 and 2000,
the number of state prisoners nationwide grew by 75 percent, to
1,242,962 from 708,393, corresponding to the rise in drug arrests,
more vigilant policing and harsher sentences.

But prison construction in most states has kept pace and often
exceeded the increase in prisoners, even though most prisons remain
overcrowded. Justice Department figures show that the state prisons
were operating at 115 percent of capacity in 1990, and at 109 percent
of capacity in 1999, the latest year for which statistics are available.

Similarly, the number of local jail beds almost doubled during the
1990's, to 677,000. In 1990, jails were operating at 104 percent of
capacity, but last year, that number dropped to 92 percent. Mr. Beck
said that in the year ending last June, more jail beds were added than
jail inmates.

Many states continue to make headlines because of overcrowded prisons
and jails, mostly in cases where the state has not built new prisons
as fast as elsewhere. New Jersey has the most crowded prison system,
according to the Justice Department, at 143 percent of its capacity,
and Illinois and Wisconsin are only a few percentage points behind.
Other states, including Alabama, have allowed local jails to hold
their excess prisoners, resulting in lawsuits over jail conditions and
court orders to expand state capacity.

But nationally the crowding is diminishing, and experts predict it
will become a much less serious problem in the coming decade as the
number of prisoners stabilizes and prisons now under construction
open. Several states added so many beds that they have an excess of
prison capacity, and Texas and Virginia have made a lucrative business
out of leasing their spare prison beds to more crowded states.

Ten percent of the inmates in Virginia's prisons are from out of
state, and the state expects to receive more than $80 million this
year for housing them. Several prisoners from Connecticut and New
Mexico who were housed at Virginia's newest "supermax" prisons have
filed lawsuits complaining about abusive conditions and racial
discrimination at the new buildings, which restrict the movement of
prisoners more sharply than in most prisons.

Marc Mauer, deputy director of the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit
group that supports prisoners' rights, said he expected that questions
regarding treatment of prisoners at new institutions would eventually
overtake crowding as the principal concern of advocates.

"Crowding only tells you whether there are enough beds for all the
inmates," Mr. Mauer said. "It doesn't tell you how many vocational or
treatment programs there are, or what life is like inside the prisons
24 hours a day."

If the prison population continues to stabilize or diminish, it could
have a substantial economic benefit to states and localities. State
prisoners now cost an average of $23,000 a year to house, so the
65,810 prisoners added between 1998 and 1999 increased the nation's
prison expenditures by about $1.5 billion. By contrast, the following
year, only 18,558 prisoners were added, a difference of more than $1
billion.

But prison-building remains popular with many politicians and voters,
and new prisons often provide a boost to rural economies. Few people
in the field expect building to stop.

"We're a long way from the point where crime is not a major political
issue," said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at
Northeastern University. "The political agenda is still heavily
weighted towards punishment, and many states are much more willing to
spend money on prison construction than on new schools."