.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) Corrections officials built 213 state and federal prisons
from 1990 to 1995 to cope with a quickly expanding inmate population now
exceeding 1 million for the first time, the Justice Department reports.

As of June 30, 1995, state or federal correctional facilities held 1.02
million people, up from 715,649 in 1990, the Bureau of Justice Statistics
said in a statistical portrait of the prison system released Thursday.

To accommodate them, authorities built 168 state and 45 federal prisons to
increase the number of such institutions to 1,500. The number of prison beds
rose 41 percent to 976,000, the report said.

Despite the building boom, state prisons operated at an average 3 percent
over capacity and federal prisons 24 percent.

``Approximately one in four state correctional facilities was under a court
order or consent decree to limit population or address specific confinement
conditions,'' the report said. ``However, the number of facilities ordered by
courts to limit their populations declined from 183 in 1990 to 174.''

By 1995, about half the state and federal prisons were more than 20 years
old, and almost 40 percent of inmates were incarcerated in facilities built
since 1985.

The nation's 3,300 local jails and county or municipal detention centers were
not covered by the census, which the bureau conducts every five years.

The prison census showed that the state and federal prison population
exceeded 1 million for the first time in 1994.

Separate Justice Department figures said the number of inmates as a
percentage of the population also rose. In 1990, prisons held 293 per every
100,000 Americans. By 1995, the figure had risen to 409 inmates per 100,000,
and figures already released this year put 1996's number at 427 per 100,000.

Much of the increase can be explained by a jump in the number of people
admitted to state prisons from 1985 to 1990, said bureau statistician James
Stephan, the report's author. During that time, a surge in violent offenses
by whites merged with more numerous drug offenses by blacks.

``There were more people coming in the door and fewer people going out the
back door,'' Stephan said. Demands by politicians for longer prison sentences
were not a significant factor, he said.

``Our numbers are not showing it being the result of that,'' Stephan said.
``These other factors are more to the point.''

Authorities reported more than 14,000 assaults on prison employees in 1995,
up 32 percent from 1990, but the number of assaults per 1,000 employees
remained level at 15.

The number of state and federal prison employees grew 31 percent to 347,320
from 1990 to 1995, the report said. Female staffing levels rose 60 percent,
while the number of male staff increased 29 percent.

Assaults on inmates rose 20 percent, but the number per 1,000 dropped from 31
in 1990 to 27 in 1995.

Noncitizens comprised 5 percent of inmates, or 51,500, in 1995, double the
number in 1990.

Also, 2 percent of offenders were held in privately run institutions, which
included 29 ``confinement institutions'' prisons, prison hospitals, boot
camps and other facilities and 81 ``communitybased facilities'' such as
halfway houses and prerelease centers.

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