Record Prison Population Linked to Stiffer Sentencing

Stiffer sentencing policies helped raise the population of the nation’s already-crowded state and federal prison systems to a record 503,000 last year, a Justice Department study said Monday.

“There is evidence that prison populations have grown because criminals are increasingly likely to be punished,” said Steven R. Schlesinger, director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, as he released a bulletin reporting that overall prison populations had increased 39,000 in 1985 and nearly 174,000 since 1980.

Schlesinger noted that the report shows a substantial rise in the rate of imprisonment for murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault and burglary, the most common serious crimes. In 1980, it said, about 25 individuals went to prison for every 1,000 of the listed crimes reported to police, but in 1984 the ratio increased to 39 commitments for every 1,000 crimes reported. The rate of crimes reported always widely exceeds imprisonments, in part because many prisoners are charged with multiple offenses.

Up Nearly 45%

Between 1980 and 1985, the report said, the number of inmates per 100,000 population serving sentences of a year or more, known as “sentenced” prisoners, rose nationally from 139 to 201, an increase of nearly 45%.

State and federal prisons in California held 50,111 prisoners as 1985 ended, the report said. This total was 6,797 more than in 1984 and 25,000 more than 1980.

The upward trend in incarcerations in California, the nation’s most populous state, accounted for nearly two-thirds of a 69% bulge in the West’s prison population and 16% of the entire national increase. Schlesinger and his aides attributed a substantial part of the rise to California’s determinate sentencing system for fixing the length of terms, intensified by an increasingly less permissive public attitude toward crime, which has encouraged stiffer sentencing.

State Facilities Crowded

Because of crowding in state facilities, 19 states housed 10,143 sentenced prisoners in local jails at the end of 1985, the report said. Of the total, 55% were in three states: Louisiana, with 2,923, New Jersey, with 1,486, and California, with 1,122. But it said the actual number of sentenced prisoners held in jails dropped last year by 1,340 below the 1984 level, with 391 fewer in California.

Because states did not provide uniform data, the study offered high and low estimates, rather than specific figures, on overall prison capacities, but its findings indicated that prison plant expansions have yet to catch up with mounting populations.

Between 1983 and 1985, state and federal systems added facilities for 44,000 prisoners, but prison populations grew by nearly 68,000, the report said. It estimated that the combined capacities of the state and federal systems were between 410,000 and 465,500 at the end of 1985.

The report estimated the national rate of prison overcrowding at between 106% and 121% of rated capacity, with the worst congestion in federal facilities, where it said the population behind bars is between 23% and 54% over rated capacity. It put the nationwide occupancy rate for state prisons between 105% and 119% of capacity, and said California’s system ended the year with 45,237 prisoners--52% over its rated capacity of 29,702.

Although efficient operation of prisons generally requires reserve capacity so cells can be maintained and repaired and emergencies can be dealt with, “at the end of 1985, few states had any reserve capacity,” the report said, and systems were operating at an average of 105% of their highest official capacities.

To relieve congestion, 19 of the 52 jurisdictions surveyed used early release programs, under which, the report said, 18,617 prisoners were freed before their terms expired. Two-thirds of those releases took place in three states----Georgia, Florida and Tennessee. California has no early release program but uses jails and work furlough facilities to ease prison congestion.

The report found the rate of incarceration for males sentenced to more than one year was 394 per 100,000 population, 23 times the rate of 17 per 100,000 for females. It said the 23,091 women inmates at year’s end constituted 4.6% of the nation’s prison population.