Inmate Population Topped 2 Million in '02, Report Says

In a one-day head count conducted on June 30, the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government held 1,355,748 prisoners, accounting for two-thirds of the nation's incarcerated population, according to the annual survey by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. Local, municipal and county facilities held 665,475 inmates on that day.

Statisticians at the agency, which has been tracking the nation's prison population since 1977, acknowledged that it was only a matter of time before this benchmark was reached. But underlying the decades-long growth trend is a twist: The federal prison numbers are rising rapidly, but the growth rate in state prisons is slowing.

Although the federal prison system expanded by 5.7% from 2001 to 2002 -- adding 8,042 inmates -- state prisons grew by just 0.9%, or 12,440 new inmates. The rate of increase among the federal prison population has outpaced the states' since 1995.

Indeed, with crime numbers declining across the country, states with some of the largest prison systems saw their inmate populations shrink. Texas' numbers fell 3.9%, the largest reduction for any state; followed by New York at 2.9%; Delaware at 2.3%; and California at 2.2%. Although its incarcerated population dropped by 3,650, California continues to maintain the largest state prison system, with 160,315 inmates, followed by Texas, Florida and New York.

But in 20 states -- led by Rhode Island at 17.4% and New Mexico at 11.1% -- the inmate population grew by more than 5% from the previous year.

Other highlights of the report released Sunday:

* The number of people held in local jails -- which house individuals awaiting trial, in addition to those already sentenced -- jumped by 5.4% in 2002, growing faster than the number of new jail beds for the first time since 1997. Los Angeles County kept its title of the biggest local jail system in the country, with an average daily population of 19,258 inmates.

* Overcrowding remains more acute on the federal level: Federal prisons were operating at an average of 31% above capacity, while state prisons were 1% to 16% above capacity.

* One-quarter of all federal prisoners were not U.S. citizens. The number of noncitizens in U.S. and state prisons was 88,776 on the day of the survey, a 1% increase over the previous year.