INMATE POPULATION GROWS 2.3% IN U.S.

Researcher Atributes Increase To Tougher Sentencing Policies

Washington- Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between
mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million
people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported
Sunday.

By last June 30, there were 48,000 more inmates, or 2.3 percent, more
than the year before, according to the latest figures from the Bureau
of Justice Statistics.

The total inmate population has hovered around 2 million for the past
few years, reaching 2.1 million on June 30, 2002, and just below that
mark a year later.

While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of
people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released,
said the report's co-author, Paige Harrison. For example, the number
of admissions to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded releases by more
than 8,000, the study found.

Mr. Harrison said the increase can be attributed largely to get-tough
policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. Among them are mandatory drug
sentences, "three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws for repeat offenders,
and "truth-in-sentencing" laws that restrict early releases.

"As a whole most of these policies remain in place," she said. "These
policies were a reaction to the rise in crime in the '80s and early
'90s."

There were 726 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents by June 30,
2004, compared with a year earlier, according to the report by the
Justice Department agency. In 2004, one in every 138 U.S. residents
was in prison or jail; the previous year it was one in every 140.

In 2004, 61 percent of prison and jail inmates were of racial or
ethnic minorities, the government said. An estimated 12.6 percent of
all black men in their late 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.6
percent of Hispanic men and 1.7 percent of white men in that age
group, the report said.

State prisons held about 2,500 youths under 18 in 2004. That compares
with a peak, in 1995, of about 5,300.

Local jails held about 7,000 youths, down from 7,800 in 1995.

In the year ending last June 30, 13 states reported an increase of at
least 5 percent in the federal system, led by Minnesota, at about 13
percent; Montana at 10.5 percent; Arkansas at 9 percent.

Among the 12 states that reported a decline in the inmate population
were Alabama, 7 percent; Connecticut, 2.5 percent; and Ohio, 2 percent.

According to the Justice Policy Institute, which advocates a more
lenient system of punishment, the United States has a higher rate of
incarceration than any other country, followed by Britain, China,
France, Japan and Nigeria.