PRISON POPULATION CONTINUES INCREASE TO OVER 1.2 MILLION

Behind Bars the number of state and federal prisoners has gone up every
year this decade

1990: 773,919

1991: 825,559 (up 6.7 percent)

1992: 882,500( 6.9 percent)

1993: 970,444 (7.4 percent)

1994: 1,054,702 (8.7 percent)

1995: 1,125,874 (6.7 percent)

1996: 1,183,368 (5.1 percent)

1997: 1,244,554 (5.2 percent)

Source: Bureau of Justice statistics

Social issues: Longer incarcerations because of tougher parole boards and
inmates serving time for violent crimes are cited.

Washington - The nation's adult prison population grew to more than 1.2
million in 1997, its slow but steady rise fueled by inmates serving longer
terms for violent crimes while a constant stream of criminals entered
prison doors, the Justice Department reported Sunday.

The 5.2 percent growth, to 1,244,554 federal and state prison inmates by
year's end, was slightly below the 7 percent annual average growth during
the 1990s, the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said. That was a
net gain of 61,186 inmates during the year - very close to the annual
average of 63,900 since 1990, when prison inmates numbered only 774,000.

And more than half a million other men and women were serving shorter
sentences or awaiting trials in jails during 1997, the bureau said.

If this growth continues, the combined prison and jail population will top
2 million by 2000, even though crime has been dropping since 1994,
according to an estimate from The Sentencing Projects, a private group that
advocates alternatives to imprisonment.

Already, the United States trails only Russia in the share of its citizens
behind bars. The total U.S. incarceration rate of 645 people per 100,000 is
six times to 10 times higher than most industrial nations, the project said.

With stable admissions, "the prison population growth in the 1990s has been
primarily driven by the increasing lengths of stay - fewer inmates
leaving," said bureau statistician Allen J. Beck, co-author of the report.

"The increased time served, particularly for violent crimes, is a product
of tougher parole boards and such measures as longer minimum sentences and
truth-in-sentencing laws that require that more of each sentence be served
behind bars," Beck said in an interview. Such laws have proliferated at the
state and federal level during the 1990s.

In 1985, the average inmate had served 20 months upon release, but by 1996
that figure had risen to 25 months, Beck said.

"And contrary to popular belief, the greatest source of growth in state
prisons is in violent offenders, not drug violators," Beck said.

Violent offenders is state prisons - which together house 10 times as many
prisoners as the federal system - grew by 179,500, or 50 percent, from 1990
to 1996.

A rise in revoked probation and parole has been a major factor in keeping
admissions stable even though violent crime has declined during the 1990s,
Beck said. By 1996, 30 pwecent of all prison entrants were put there for
parole violations. Another BJS survey found that 20 percent of inmates
whose parole or probation was revoked had not been charged with new crimes,
Beck said, but rather had violated conditions of parole.

California was first nationally in state prison inmates with 157,547 and
Texas second with 140,729.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski