1 IN EVERY 155 AMERICANS BEHIND BARS AS PRISON POPULATION CONTINUES TO CLIMB

The nation's prison and jail population increased nearly 6 percent last
year, from an estimated 1.6 million to more than 1.7 million by June 30,
the Justice Department said Sunday.

That puts one in every 155 U.S. residents in jail as of midyear 1997,
according to a new report by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

However, the jump was slightly smaller than those recorded in earlier
years. From 1990 to 1997, the number increased an average of 6.5 percent
annually. The number of prisoners behind bars in state and federal
institutions grew in 1997 by 55,198, or 4.7 percent. That was also less
than the annual average increase, which has stood at 7.7 percent since 1990.

Despite smaller than usual increases at the state and federal level, the
figures for prisoners in local jails rose by more than the average.

From July 1 to June 30, inmates in local jails grew by 48,587, or 9.4
percent, "considerably more than the 4.9 uercent average annual growth
since 199'0," the bureau said.

States with double-digit increases in inmate populations included North
Dakota, up 15.5 percent, and Wisconsin, up 15.4 percent.

The Sentencing Project, a private group that advocates less imprisonment
and more use of creative alternatives, noted that the total U.S. prison
population is still on the rise even though crime rates have been sliding
steadily since 1992.

The 1997 figures "mark a quarter century of continuous increase in the
national prison population, an unprecedented rise in the nation's history,"
the group

said in a written statement. "This (rise) is primarily due to the ongoing
impact of harsh sentencing policies and the growing number of offenders on
probation and parole who are sent to prison."

During the past 25 years, the federal and state inmate population has
increased sixfold from just 200,000 in 1972, according to the group.

"On a per capita basis, the United States is now second only to Russia in
its rate of incarceration and locks up its citizens at a rate 5 to 10 times
that of most industrialized nations," the group said.