Pubdate: Mon, 13 Aug 2001
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2001 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.sjmercury.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Fox Butterfield, New York Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)

NUMBER OF STATE PRISON INMATES DROPS

Last Year's Modest Decline First Since 1972; California Prisons See Very 
Slight Rise

The number of inmates in state prisons fell in the second half of last 
year, the first decline since the U.S. prison boom began in 1972, according 
to a Justice Department report released Sunday.

The decline was modest, a drop of 6,200 inmates in state prisons in the 
last six months of 2000, or 0.5 percent of the total, the report said. But 
it comes after the number of state prisoners rose 500 percent over the last 
three decades, growing each year in the 1990s even as crime dropped.

The total number of people incarcerated in state and federal prisons, local 
jails and juvenile detention centers was 2,071,686 at the end of 2000, the 
report said.

"I think it is a very significant development," said Alfred Blumstein, a 
professor of criminology at Carnegie Mellon University. "It is really the 
first change in direction in 30 years in the march toward incarceration."

In California, the number of state prison inmates was up just 66 inmates, 
from 163,001 to 163,067.

Contributing Factors

Experts attributed the nationwide drop to several factors: the continuing 
decline in crime, which began in 1992; new attitudes about offering drug 
offenders treatment instead of locking them up; and a greater willingness 
by parole officers to help parolees instead of sending them back to prison 
for minor infractions.

"If this trend continues, it could be a real change in the most important 
vector that has been driving the American criminal justice system for 30 
years," said Franklin Zimring, a law professor at the University of 
California-Berkeley.

In 1972, he noted, after 50 years of stability in the incarceration rate, 
200,000 Americans were in state and federal prisons. Now 1.3 million are.

Law enforcement officials and criminologists cautioned that the decline was 
not a trend. In fact, for all of 2000, counting state and federal prisons, 
the number of inmates actually grew 1.3 percent, the report said. But that 
is well below the average growth rate of 6 percent in the 1990s and is the 
lowest rate of increase since 1972, the report said.

At the end of 2000, there were 1,236,476 people in state prisons and 
145,416 in federal prisons.

What seems to be happening, said Allen J. Beck, the main author of the 
report, which was released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, is that the 
rate of increase of prisoners has been slowing for several years and has 
reached a point where it is stable. It is too early to tell whether the 
slowdown will continue and lead to a real decline in the number of inmates, 
Beck said.

He said he did not yet believe the number would drop substantially. 
Thirteen states experienced a decline in their number of prisoners for the 
full year, he said, led by Massachusetts, with a drop of 5.6 percent, New 
Jersey, down 5.4 percent, New York, down 3.7 percent, and Texas, down 3.2 
percent. In each of these states, short-term factors accounted for the 
declines, like a drop in arrests or more lenient parole policies, Beck said.

Budget Benefits

But if the decline continues, it could benefit state budgets because 
prisons have been the fastest-growing item of state spending over the last 
20 years. In a number of states, including California, spending on prisons 
has depleted money for state colleges and universities.

In the last decade, states built prisons with 528,000 new beds, the report 
found. At an average cost of $50,000 per bed, building prisons cost the 
states $26.4 billion, Beck said. In addition, the annual operating costs 
for state and federal prisons now run about $30 billion, Beck said.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager