Prison Population Rose to 464,000 in 1984

State and federal prisons held nearly 464,000 persons at the end of 1984, a record inmate population for the 10th straight year that has forced officials to find more space, the government reported Sunday.

The prison population grew by 6.1% over 1983, and the number of federal and state inmates has skyrocketed by 40.6% since 1980, said the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The largest prison population increases last year occurred in Western and Northeastern states, said the bureau, a unit of the Justice Department.

“Although the states added an estimated 100,000 new prison beds during the last four years, overcrowding remains a serious problem,” the bureau director, Steven R. Schlesinger, said.

The overall state and federal prison population count at the end of last year stood at 463,866, up 26,618 from 1983, the bureau’s annual report said.

One factor behind the swelling prison rolls, Schlesinger said, is the increasing proportion of sentences meted out relative to the number of serious crimes reported to police.