POPULATION BEHIND BARS HITS MILESTONE OF 2 MILLION

Federal Prison Numbers Are Rising Most Rapidly

WASHINGTON - The nation's inmate population swelled to more than 2 million
for the first time last year, with nearly one in every 142 U.S. residents
behind bars in 2002, a new Justice Department survey says.

Some experts said the climbing numbers were driven by tougher sentencing
policies, particularly for drug offenders, and three-strikes laws that
mandate life sentences for some repeat offenders. Others say those policies
have helped reduce crime and the number of state prisoners.

But Jeremy Travis, a senior fellow at Washington's Urban Institute, a
nonpartisan economic and social-policy research center, said it's too early
to weigh their overall effect.

"The important historical perspective here is to realize that the
per-capita rate of incarceration has quadrupled since the 1980s," Travis
said. "The pressing question now is whether, in an era of low crime rates
and tight budgets, we can continue to use imprisonment as our predominant
crime policy."

In a one-day head count conducted June 30, 2002, the 50 states, the
District of Columbia and the federal government held about two-thirds of
the nation's incarcerated population, and local jails held one-third.

Statisticians at the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which has been tracking
the nation's prison population since 1977, acknowledged it was only a
matter of time before this benchmark was reached. But underlying the
decades-long growth trend is a twist: The federal prison numbers are rising
rapidly, but the growth rate in state prisons is slowing.

While the federal prison system expanded by 5.7 percent between 2001 and
2002, state prisons grew by just 0.9 percent. The rate of increase among
the federal prison population has outpaced the states' since 1995.

In fact, with crime numbers declining nationwide, states with some of the
largest prison systems saw their inmate populations shrink. Texas' numbers
fell 3.9 percent, the largest reduction for any state, followed by New York
at 2.9 percent, Delaware at 2.3 percent and California at 2.2 percent.

But in 20 states -- led by Rhode Island at 17.4 percent and New Mexico at
11.1 percent -- the inmate population grew more than 5 percent from the
previous year.

North Carolina's incarcerated population climbed 5.2 percent, from 31,142
in 2001 to 32,755 in 2002. South Carolina's incarcerated population grew
3.4 percent, from 22,267 to 23,017.

North Carolina expects to open three 1,000-bed prisons this year, but the
Department of Correction still projects the state will fall short of beds
as soon as next year. The state has spent more than $400 million since 1991
to build new prisons.

Experts note different reasons for the widening gap between the number of
inmates held on the federal and state levels. Chief among them are growing
budget troubles, which are causing many states to downsize their prison
populations by sentencing nonviolent drug offenders to treatment programs.
Others, such as Texas, are trying alternative sanctions against parole
violators caught for minor infractions.

Experts also point to the federal criminal-justice system's expanding
reach. It now encompasses crimes such as drug- and gun-related offenses.
There has been an increase in the number of people sentenced to prison for
those crimes, as well as stricter enforcement of federal immigration and
customs violations.

Other highlights:

. Crowding remains more acute on the federal level: Federal prisons
operated at an average of 31 percent above capacity, while state prisons
were 1 percent to 16 percent above capacity.

. One-quarter of all federal prisoners were not U.S. citizens. The number
of noncitizens in federal and state prisons was 88,776 on the day of the
survey, a 1 percent increase over the previous year.

. Racial and ethnic disparities have not shifted. Among all men in the
United States in their 20s and early 30s, an estimated 12 percent of
blacks, 4 percent of Hispanics and 1.6 percent of whites were in prison or
jail.

. The number of minors held in adult state prison facilities was 3,055,
down nearly 3 percent from the previous year. Additionally, adult jails
held 7,248 inmates younger than 18.

. Men are about 15 times more likely than women to be incarcerated in a
state or federal prison. For every 100,000 women in the United States, 60
were serving a sentence of longer than one year, compared with 902 inmates
per 100,000 men.