Re "Fewer crimes, more inmates," Aug. 3: To the 1,244,554 prisoners in
America in 1997, add the jail population of approximately
550,000-plus, roughly 100,000 locked-up juveniles and another 50,000
miscellaneous (e.g., institutionalized mental patients). The total
confined population comes to nearly 2 million. This is a rate of
nearly 700 per 100,000 residents, not 445. It is 10 times higher than
the rates in most other advanced countries.

We also have nearly 3 million probationers and parolees. Thus, nearly
5 million Americans are under the jurisdiction of the criminal courts.

In California, the total number of people locked in jails, juvenile
halls and mental facilities is about 246,000. If one includes
probationers and parolees, the number goes up to 630,000.

Everyone agrees that our prison population cannot continue to grow at
the present annual rate of 7.9 percent. If it did, the entire state
population would be either locked up or on parole/probation by 2051.

--Tom Kando, Sacramento Professor of Sociology and Criminology
California State University, Sacramento