Prison Population Up 6%, a Slight Slowdown of Growth
The nation’s prison and jail population increased nearly 6% last year, from 1.6 million to more than 1.7 million by June 30, the Justice Department said Sunday.
That puts one in every 155 U.S. residents in confinement as of midyear 1997, according to a new report by the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
However, the jump was slightly smaller than those recorded in earlier years. From 1990 to 1997, the number increased an average of 6.5% annually. The number of prisoners behind bars in state and federal institutions grew in 1997 by 55,198, or 4.7%, the report said. That was also less than the annual average increase, which has stood at 7.7% since 1990.
Unlike the smaller increase at the state and federal level, the figure for prisoners in local jails rose by more than the average.
Other details included in the report:
* Two-thirds of all inmates, more than 1.1 million, were incarcerated in federal and state prisons, and the rest, 567,079 prisoners, were held in local facilities.
* Hawaii recorded the biggest prisoner increase with 21.6%. Next in line were North Dakota, up 15.5%, and Wisconsin, up 15.4%.
* The only states to report declines were Massachusetts, down 0.7% and Virginia, down 0.5%. The District of Columbia also reported a decrease, 0.2%.
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