WASHINGTON (AP) -- Even with falling crime rates and slowing prison population growth, the number of Americans behind bars will likely surpass 2 million by the end of next year, Justice Department officials say.
At the middle of last year, prisons and jails held 1,860,520 adults, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report. With an increase of 60,000 prisoners over the previous year, the United States may have matched or even surpassed Russia as the country with the highest rate of incarceration.The growth rate of state and federal prison populations slowed to 4.4 percent in 1999, the lowest since the 2.3 percent growth in 1979. Much of the decline was at the state level, since the growth rate for federal prisons actually increased to 9.6 percent last year from 7.9 percent in 1998.
"In the federal system, growth is being driven by drug law violators and immigration violators coming in," said statistician Allen J. Beck, author of the bureau report issued on Wednesday.
The U.S. prison population has grown steadily for more than a quarter-century, helped by increased drug prosecutions and tougher policies against all offenders. Beck said that if the current growth continues, the total prison and jail population would likely hit 2 million in the second half of 2001.
Viewing the latest figures in light of the current U.S. population, one of every 147 residents was an inmate in an adult jail or prison at the middle of last year.
In Russia, one of every 146 people was behind bars in 1998, the last year for which figures were available, according to The Sentencing Project, a private group that advocates alternatives to prison.