PRISON POPULATION GROWTH SLOWS

Federal Facilities See Largest Gain

WASHINGTON -- The number of people in prison grew last year at the slowest
rate in three decades, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

The total population in all prisons and jails rose a bit more than 1% to
nearly two million, according to the annual report. As of June 30, 2001,
one of every 145 U.S. residents was behind bars.

Tougher anticrime policies, more facilities and longer sentences have
caused the decades-long increase in the prison population. Most of the
growth between 2000 and 2001 came in federal facilities.

"It appears the state-prison population has reached some stability," said
Allen Beck, a statistician with the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Crime
rates are down and parole violations have stabilized, while state
legislatures in recent years haven't enacted the kind of sweeping
sentencing reforms that passed in the early 1990s.

Mr. Beck said the federal system could continue to grow at its current pace
as U.S. district court caseloads swell. Much of that caseload is taken up
by drug , immigration and weapons prosecutions. The trend "depends on
federal law enforcement and prosecutorial discretion," he said.

Overall, there were 1,965,495 people in custody in federal and state
prisons and local jails in June 2001, up 1.6% from the previous year.

The population in U.S. and state prisons combined rose 1.1%, the slowest
annual growth since 1972. The bulk of the prison population is at the state
level, which rose 0.4%. The number of federal prisoners rose 7.2%.

Prisons usually hold convicted criminals sentenced to terms longer than one
year. Jails generally keep inmates awaiting trial or serving shorter sentences.

Longstanding racial and ethnic disparities remained, particularly among
younger black men. For instance, 13% of black males age 25 to 29 were in
prison or jail, compared with 4.1% of Hispanic men and 1.8% of white males.

Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project, an advocacy
group, gave a mixed review to the Justice report. The group pushes for
alternatives to incarceration.

"Increasingly, policy makers recognize that prisons are expensive," Mr.
Mauer said about the trend on the state level. He suggested that the
current atmosphere of tightening budgets may have legislators rethinking
sentencing policies to avoid building new prisons.

"Money is less of an obstacle to Congress," Mr. Mauer added. "The federal
system is where there has been a great reluctance in Congress to reconsider
mandatory sentencing laws and drug policy."

Mr. Beck added that some of the increase in the federal prison population
came as the U.S. government continued to assume responsibility for District
of Columbia prisoners. That transfer ended in 2001.

In the first six months of 2001, the number of inmates added to the federal
system reached 7,372, the largest increase for a six-month period. More
inmates were added to the federal system than to state systems, which
gained 7,048 inmates.

The number of people being held in local jails in June 2001 reached
631,240, up 1.6% from the previous year.