PRISON POPULATION ROSE UNDER CLINTON

More Than During Bush, Reagan Terms

The federal and state prison populations rose more under former President
Clinton than under any other president, according to a report from a
criminal justice institute to be released today.

In fact, the analysis of U.S. Justice Department statistics by the
left-leaning Justice Policy Institute, a project of a San Francisco-based
justice center, found that more federal inmates were added to prisons under
Clinton than under Presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan combined.

"I remember thinking when Bill Clinton got elected that we would have a
chance to turn things around," said Vincent Schiraldi, president of JPI, a
project of the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice. "But I think we
read the tea leaves wrong."

From opposing a federal commission's push for equalization of drug
sentences for powder cocaine and crack cocaine, to embracing a 1994 crime
bill that accelerated the rate of prison construction, the Democratic
president often stole the show from "tough-on-crime" Republicans, the study
said.

In doing so, it said, he left a record that did not square with his
rhetoric on such topics as easing mandatory sentences.

While calling as recently as last fall for a review of the nation's prison
policies, Clinton presided over an administration that, in its first term,
saw an additional 277,000 prisoners incarcerated in federal and state
facilities, according to the study. That number compared with 243,000
prisoners during former President Bush's four years in office and 129,000
during Reagan's first four years in office.

During Clinton's eight-year tenure, the total population of federal and
state prisons combined rose by 673,000 inmates -- 235,000 more than during
Reagan's two terms.

Although most of the national increase in incarceration occurred in
state-run prisons, the study found that the number of prisoners under
federal jurisdiction doubled during the Clinton years and grew more than
during the previous 12 years of Republican control of the White House.

Nearly 60 percent of those sentenced to federal prison during the Clinton
administration are serving time for drug offenses, the study said. The
total number of people in federal prison on drug charges -- 63,448 -- is 62
percent more than the number in 1990.

The dramatic increase in prison populations was attributable to several
factors, Schiraldi said, including the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act, which earmarked $30.2 billion over six years for, among
other things, new state prisons. One condition for receiving the federal
funds, he noted, was that states scale back early paroles and adopt
sentencing policies requiring that inmates serve more time in prison.

Also contributing to the increase, Schiraldi said, were tougher
three-strikes sentencing laws adopted in more than 20 states during 1994
and 1995.