Number of Inmates Nationwide Sets Record

The population of the nation’s prisons increased to a record 1.3 million last year, but the rate of growth slowed somewhat in both California and the country as a whole, echoing a steady decline in crime rates, the Justice Department reported Sunday.

At the end of 1998, state and federal prisons nationally housed 60,000 more inmates than a year earlier. While the increase in the number of inmates was the greatest since 1995, the 4.8% growth rate was down from 5.0% in 1997 and considerably lower than the decade’s annual average of 6.7%.

Justice Department officials and criminal justice experts said last year’s overall growth reflects a continuing imbalance between the effects of anti-crime initiatives and a shortage of available prison beds.

California’s inmate population increased by almost 3.9% in 1998, placing it 30th among the states. Mississippi prisons had the highest growth rate in the country, almost 17%.

While crime rates are dropping, three-strikes laws and other sentencing reforms have made it more likely that convicted criminals will go to prison, said Allen Beck, coauthor of the Justice Department report. And once they are behind bars, they are likely to serve longer sentences.

“The increasing length of stay in prison is the biggest factor pushing prison populations up at this point,” Beck added.

The national average for length of time served in prison increased from 22 months in 1990 to 27 months in 1997, the most recent year for which figures are available. In California, the average time served is 23 months.

A 40% increase in the number of offenders returned to prison for violating parole also has contributed to growing inmate rolls, Beck said. About 47% of prisoners are serving time for violent crimes.

And although the rate of growth in the prison population declined last year, government officials were quick to stress that there is a steady increase in the number of inmates.

“The [growth] rates going down are deceptive,” said Christopher Mumola, an analyst in the Bureau of Justice Statistics. “People think it must be getting better, but in terms of prisoners going into the system, that’s not the case at all.”

California’s prison population grew by more than 6,000 inmates last year to a total of about 162,000. The state’s penitentiary system, the most crowded in the country, has twice as many prisoners as it is designed to hold.

Stricter enforcement of drug laws and harsher sentences resulted in an explosion of California’s inmate population throughout the 1980s. Over the decade, the number of California inmates increased by 263%, outpacing all other states and more than twice the national rate. The growth rate of the bulging penitentiary population eased some in the early 1990s, a trend that many law enforcement officers attribute to the threat of harsher penalties.

With more prisoners spending more time behind bars, California corrections officials said overcrowding remains a serious problem that won’t end any time soon. The state’s Department of Corrections is in the midst of a $5-billion prison building program--the nation’s largest--that would increase the number of prison beds from 113,000 to almost 177,000. Department officials estimate that California’s prison population will pass that mark by spring 2002.

But Lance Corcoran, vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., which lobbies for the Department of Corrections in the state Legislature, said California “can’t build its way out of this problem.”

State legislators and corrections officials need to come up with alternative sentencing for less serious offenders, better rehabilitation centers and a more extensive house arrest program to reduce prison overcrowding, he said.

The average criminal commits five felonies before setting foot inside a California correctional facility, according to department statistics.

Jenni Gainsborough, spokesperson for Washington-based Sentencing Project, which follows nationwide inmate populations, said the increase shows that correctional facilities are “horribly strained.”

“Politicians have stuck to this mantra that you’ve got to be tough on crime, and until someone says, ‘Wait, what is the best way to stand up for public policy while finding alternatives?’ things will continue down this path,” she said.

The federal prison population grew about 9% last year, more than twice the rate in state prisons. The nation’s rate of prison incarceration is now at 461 inmates per 100,000 residents, up from 292 in 1990.

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WAITING TO CASH IN

California towns that have built prisons to create jobs are discovering crime does not pay. A3