PRISON POPULATION IN U.S. IS LEVELING OFF

ATLANTA, June 8 - 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."