PRISON POPULATION GROWTH SLOWS IN 2001, REPORT SAYS

WASHINGTON - The U.S. inmate population in 2001 rose at the slowest pace in
almost 30 years, with blacks still far more likely to be incarcerated than
whites or Hispanics, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

For every 100,000 people in the United States, 3,535 blacks were locked up,
compared with 462 whites and 1,177 Hispanics. Ten percent of black men ages
25-29 were incarcerated on Dec. 31, while 2.9 percent of Hispanic men and
1.2 percent of white men in the same age group were in custody.

The Sentencing Project, a group that supports alternatives to incarceration,
says the black U.S. inmate population is unprecedented.

"If black male inmates in local jails are added, the proportion rises to
nearly one in seven," said Marc Mauer, Sentencing Project spokesman.

One reason the number of black inmates continues to rise is the government's
war against drugs. Convictions for drug offenses accounted for 27 percent of
the increase in black inmates, compared with 7 percent for Hispanic inmates
and 15 percent for white inmates, the report said.

States are more likely to lock up people for violent offenses than for
drugs, the report said. But the federal government is taking up the slack,
with drug crimes accounting for 59 percent of the increase in federal prison
inmates -- even as the percentage of violent offenders dropped to 10 percent
from 17 percent, the report said.