JUSTICE: LONGER SENTENCES AND SLOWER RELEASE RATES HAVE LED TO A SURGE IN
THE U.S. INMATE POPULATION.

The recent wave of tougher sentencing laws has succeeded in making criminals
serve longer prison sentences and slowed the release of inmates, the Justice
Department's first comprehensive study of the new laws shows.

This has helped to increase the record U.S. prison population even as crime
has dropped in the 1990s, according to the study, which was released Sunday.

The report found that the average time served in state prison by violent
criminals rose to 49 months in 1997 from 43 months in 1993. Measured another
way, the proportion of their sentences that these offenders had to serve
before release grew to 54 percent in 1997 from 47 percent in 1993.

At the same time, the number of all types of criminals who were eligible for
release from state prison who were actually let out fell to 31 percent in
1996 - from 37 percent in 1990.

"The fundamental thing the report shows is that the changes in the American
prison population are the result of a shift in policy, rather than any basic
change in the nature of criminals or the crime rate," said Franklin Zimring,
director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute at the University of California,
Berkeley.

Twenty-seven states, including California, now required violent offenders to
serve at least 85 percent of their prison sentences. A 1994 federal law
authorized the government to award grants to states that set the 85 percent
minimum.

Such rules and the "three strikes, you're out" law have helped trigger an
explosion in California's prison population. Current figures show 159,790
inmates in the state penal system - more than triple the 1985 number.

State corrections officials say they expect to exceed their "maximum
capacity" of 178,432 prisoners sometime next year.