RECORD NUMBER IN U.S. PRISONS

CALIFORNIA HAS DOUBLE INMATE-TO-CELL RATIO

The population in U.S. prisons increased to a record 1.3 million last year,
but the rate of growth slowed somewhat in the country as a whole, the
Justice Department reported yesterday.

At the end of 1998, state and federal prisons housed 60,000 more inmates
than a year earlier. While the increase was the greatest since 1995, the 4.8
percent growth rate was down from 5.0 percent in 1997 and considerably lower
than the decade's annual average of 6.7 percent.

California's prison population grew by almost 3.9 percent in 1998

- --more than 6,000 inmates -- to a total of about 162,000. The state's
penitentiary system, the most crowded in the country, has twice as many
prisoners as cells.

Mississippi prisons had the highest inmate population growth rate in the
country, almost 17 percent.

Justice Department officials and criminal justice experts said last year's
overall growth reflects a continuing imbalance between the effects of
anti-crime initiatives and a shortage of available prison beds.

While crime rates are dropping, ``three-strikes'' laws and other sentencing
reforms have made it more likely that convicted criminals will go to prison,
said Allen Beck, co-author of the Justice Department report. And once they
are behind bars, they are likely to serve longer sentences.

The national average for length of time served in prison increased from 22
months in 1990 to 27 months in 1997, the most recent year for which figures
are available.

A 40 percent increase in the number of offenders returned to prison for
violating parole also has contributed to growing inmate rolls, Beck said.
About 47 percent of prisoners are serving time for violent crimes.

And although the rate of growth in the prison population declined last year,
government officials were quick to stress that there is a steady increase in
the number of inmates.

With more prisoners spending more time behind bars, California corrections
officials said, overcrowding remains a serious problem that won't end
anytime soon. The state's Department of Corrections is in the midst of a $5
billion prison building program .

But Lance Corcoran, vice president of the California Correctional Peace
Officers Association, which lobbies for the Department of Corrections in the
state Legislature, said California ``can't build its way out of this
problem.''

State legislators and corrections officials need to come up with alternative
sentencing for offenders of less-serious crimes, better rehabilitation
centers and a more-extensive house arrest program to reduce overcrowding, he
said.

The federal prison population grew about 9 percent last year, more than
twice the rate in state prisons.