Nation’s Prisoner Growth Rate Slows a Bit, but Admissions Remain at Steady Pace

The nation’s adult prison population grew to more than 1.2 million in 1997, its slow but steady rise fueled by inmates serving longer terms for violent crimes, while a constant stream of criminals entered prison doors, the Justice Department reported Sunday.

The 5.2% growth--to 1,244,554 federal and state prison inmates by year’s end--was slightly below the 7% annual average growth during the 1990s, the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics said. That was a net gain of 61,186 inmates during the year--very close to the annual average of 63,900 since 1990, when prison inmates numbered only 774,000.

And more than half a million other men and women were serving shorter sentences or awaiting trials in jails during 1997, the bureau said.

If this growth continues, the combined prison and jail population will top 2 million by 2000, even though crime has been dropping since 1994, according to an estimate from the Sentencing Project, a private group that advocates alternatives to imprisonment.

Already, the United States trails only Russia in the share of its citizens behind bars. The total U.S. incarceration rate of 645 people per 100,000 population is six times to 10 times higher than in most industrial nations, the project said.

With stable admissions, “the prison population growth in the 1990s has been primarily driven by the increasing lengths of stay--fewer inmates leaving,” said bureau statistician Allen J. Beck, who is a co-author of the report.

“The increased time served, particularly for violent crimes, is a product of tougher parole boards and such measures as longer minimum sentences and truth-in-sentencing laws that require that more of each sentence be served behind bars,” Beck said in an interview.

Such laws have proliferated at the state and federal levels during the 1990s.

In 1985, the average inmate served 20 months before being released, but by 1996 that figure had risen to 25 months, Beck said. The estimated time to be served by inmates now entering prison also is rising.

*

“And contrary to popular belief, the greatest source of growth in state prisons is in violent offenders, not drug violators,” Beck said.

Violent offenders in state prisons--which together house 10 times as many prisoners as the federal system--grew by 179,500 inmates, or 50%, between 1990 and 1996.

A rise in revoked probations and paroles has been a major factor in keeping admissions stable, even though violent crime has declined during the 1990s, Beck said. By 1996, 30% of all prison entrants were put there for parole violations.

Another bureau survey found that 20% of inmates whose parole or probation had been revoked had not been charged with new crimes, Beck said, but rather had violated conditions of parole.

Between 1990 and 1996, adult arrests for murder and rape each were down 19%; robbery arrests were down 17%; and burglary, larceny and auto theft arrests also dropped. But drug abuse arrests rose by 28%, and aggravated assault arrests were up 8% over the six years.

Among the states, Texas had the highest incarceration rate, 717 inmates per 100,000 residents, followed by Louisiana, at 672, and Oklahoma, at 617. The lowest incarceration rates were in North Dakota, at 112 per 100,000 population, and Minnesota, at 113.