The number of people in prison grew last year at the slowest rate in three decades, the Justice Department reported Wednesday.

        The prison population in some states, including Ohio, actually fell during the past year. In many other states, the rate of growth showed signs of slowing.

        The total population in all prisons and jails rose a bit more than 1 percent, nearing 2 million, according to the annual report. As of June 30, 2001, one of every 145 U.S. residents was behind bars.

        Tougher anti-crime policies, more facilities and longer sentences have caused a decades-long increase in the prison population. Most of the growth from 2000 to 2001 came in federal facilities.

        “It appears the state prison population has reached some stability,” said Allen Beck, a statistician with the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

        Crime rates are down and parole violations have stabilized, while state legislatures in recent years have not enacted the kind of sweeping sentencing reforms that passed in the early 1990s.

        Sentencing reforms in Ohio are at least in part responsible for the reduction in prison population here, said prison spokeswoman Andrea Dean.

        Ohio's inmate population dropped from 48,171 in 1999 to 45,505 last year.

        Ms. Dean said changes in sentencing laws have eliminated open-ended, or indefinite, sentences. While that means inmates no longer are eligible for parole, it also means they generally receive shorter sentences.

        Other reasons for the lower population include a lower overall crime rate and the use of more alternatives to prison, such as community treatment programs for drug offenders.

        Similar changes have affected the prison population in Kentucky, which now has 15,808 inmates. That total is up slightly over last year, but the growth has slowed since 1998.

        Mr. Beck said the federal system could continue to grow at its current pace as U.S. district court caseloads swell. Much of that caseload is taken up by drug, immigration and weapons prosecutions.

        Overall, there were 1,965,495 people in custody in federal and state prisons and local jails in June 2001, up 1.6 percent from the previous year.

        The population in U.S. and state prisons combined rose 1.1 percent, the slowest annual growth since 1972.

        Long-standing racial and ethnic disparities remained, particularly among younger black men. For instance, 13.4 percent of black males age 25 to 29 were in prison or jail, compared with 4.1 percent of Hispanic men and 1.8 percent of white males.

       Bureau of Justice Statistics: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ or the Sentencing Project: www.sentencingproject.org.

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