Even though crime rates nationwide have steadily decreased over the last eight years, state and federal prison populations grew by 3.4 percent last year. The total American prison population has climbed to more than two million people, according to a new U.S. Department of Justice report states.

While it's true the 3.4 percent boost is the lowest annual increase since 1979, crime of all types has been decreasing across the nation for the past decade.

The high prison population is being attributed to an unusually large percentage of parolees who wind up back in prison, longer mandatory sentences, and continued high numbers of convictions for nonviolent drug offenses, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The "Prisoners in 1999" report finds other disturbing date, including the fact that nearly 10 percent of all African-American men aged 25 to 29 were in federal or state prisons last year (primarily for drug crimes). That number is 10 times the incarceration rate of Hispanic males the same age. Only one percent of white males in their late 20s were in prison, the New York Times reports.

Alfred Blumstein, a Carnegie Mellon University criminologist, said the most important findings in the study are that the number of parolees being sent back to prison after committing new crimes or violations has jumped by 54 percent during the last decade. Blumstein asserts that this is due to tougher enforcement of parole rules such as mandatory drug tests, the Times reports.

Prisoners spent an average of 20 months incarcerated in 1990; they spent an average of 28 months in prison during 1998. The total number of Americans in jail in 1999 is 2,026,596 -- nearly three times the population of Portland, Ore.

Texas -- home of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, that state’s governor -- now has more inmates (163,190 in its facilities) than any other state, the Times reports.

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