Study Sees Slowing of Surge in U.S. Prison Population

WASHINGTON —  The proportion of jailed or imprisoned Americans almost doubled in the last decade, but the growth has slowed recently, the Justice Department reported Sunday. An expert said the slower growth may be only temporary.

As of June 30, federal, state and local prisons and jails held 615 men and women for each 100,000 U.S. residents, the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics said.

By comparison, there were 313 inmates per 100,000 residents at the end of 1985.

The new incarceration rate of 1 in 163 U.S. residents is the world’s highest--six to eight times higher than rates in most other industrialized nations and exceeding the last reported rate from Russia, which was in second place with 590 inmates per 100,000 residents in 1994.

From July 1, 1995, through last June 30, total U.S. incarceration grew by 69,104 to 1,630,940, or 4.4%. By comparison, the annual average increase from the end of 1985 through June 30 was 7.8%.

The government offered no explanation for the dip, but Marc Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project, a private group devoted to finding alternatives to imprisonment, said: “This could be just a momentary letup.”

Mauer said it might reflect a slight drop in drug arrests in the early 1990s, given the time it takes to complete trials and sentencing. Drug arrests rose again in the United States last year, which could speed up the rate of incarceration, he noted.