U.S. PRISON POPULATION GROWS BY 2.3 PERCENT

WASHINGTON -- Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between
mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million
people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported
Sunday. By June 30, 2004, there were 48,000 more inmates, or 2.3 percent,
more than the year before, according to the latest figures from the Bureau
of Justice Statistics.

In North Carolina, according to the bureau's report, the prison population
rose from 33,334 in 2003 to 34,917 in 2004, a 4.7 percent increase.

The total inmate population has hovered near 2 million for the past few
years, reaching 2.1 million June 30, 2002, and just below that mark a year
later.

While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people
in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said the
report's co-author, Paige Harrison. For example, the number of admissions
to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded releases by more than 8,000, the study
found.

Harrison said the increase can be attributed largely to get-tough policies
enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. Among them are mandatory drug sentences,
"three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws for repeat offenders, and
"truth-in-sentencing" laws that restrict early releases.

"As a whole, most of these policies remain in place," she said. "These
policies were a reaction to the rise in crime in the '80s and early '90s."

Added Malcolm Young, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which
promotes alternatives to prison, "We're working under the burden of laws
and practices that have developed over 30 years that have focused on
punishment and prison as our primary response to crime."

He said many of those incarcerated are not serious or violent offenders but
are low-level drug offenders. Young said one way to help lower the number
is to introduce drug treatment programs that offer effective ways of
changing behavior and to provide appropriate assistance for the mentally ill.

According to the Justice Policy Institute, which advocates a more lenient
system of punishment, the United States has a higher rate of incarceration
than any other country, followed by Britain, China, France, Japan and
Nigeria.