The number of people held in US prisons and detention centres has edged past an historic two-million mark, according to latest official figures.
A total of 2,071,686 people were imprisoned in the United States at the end of last year, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported last night.
The new figures consolidate the US lead, in absolute terms, over China and Russia, according to a list compiled by the British Home Office. The Chinese prison population was 1.4 million at the end of the 1990s, and Russia's did not exceed one million inmates, the list showed.
Although the US prison population rose only 1.3 per cent during 2000 - the smallest annual growth rate since 1972 - the slowdown was not enough to prevent the United States from setting the new record.
Releasing the latest statistics, the bureau noted that in the second half of last year the overall number of people held in state-run prisons declined for the first time since 1972. This net decline of 6,200 inmates reflected lower numbers in 13 states, including Texas and New York.
But for federal and state prisons together, the rate of incarceration at the end of last year was 478 sentenced inmates per 100,000 US residents - up from 292 in 1990, according to the report.
That number did not include those in pre-trial detention as well as people held by the immigration service and the armed forces. If those detainees were included, the incarceration rate would reach 699 people per every 100,000 residents, according to The Sentencing Project, a watchdog group that monitors the US prison system.
"In comparison to other industrialised nations, the US rate of incarceration is five to eight times that of Canada and most of Western Europe," the group said.
AFP