AROUND THE NATION

AROUND THE NATION; State and U.S. Prisoners Reach 405,371, a Record

Jan. 17, 1983

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The number of state and Federal prison inmates rose 11,055 in the third quarter of 1982, to a record of 405,371, the Justice Department said today.

The department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said there was a 9.9 percent increase in prisoners in the first nine months of 1982, compared with an 8.6 percent increase in the first nine months of 1981.

Prison populations have been growing at near-record rates in 1981 and 1982, and bureau officials have attributed this largely to new state laws imposing mandatory sentences and restricting parole. The total 1981 increase was 11.8 percent. The record annual increase in the 57 years that records have been kept was 12.2 percent, in 1939.

Federal prisoners accounted for 29,403 of the total as of Sept. 30, 1982, or about 20 percent more than the rated capacity of Federal prisons.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 8 of the National edition with the headline: AROUND THE NATION; State and U.S. Prisoners Reach 405,371, a Record. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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