Subject: Jail Inmates, 1990


JAIL INMATES IN 1990

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Bureau of Justice Statistics today estimated
there were 405,320 people in the nation's local jails as of June 29,
1990.  According to the Bureau, which is a U.S. Department of Justice
agency in the Office of Justice Programs, this was 2.5 percent more
than the number of jail inmates held on June 30, 1989.  The average
daily jail population for the 12-month period ending last June 29 was
408,075, which was a 5.5 percent increase over the preceding year.

     "The growth rate in both the annual count and the average
daily population was significantly lower than the 15 percent
increases recorded between 1988 and 1989," said Bureau Director Steven
D. Dillingham.  "Overall, jail occupancy was 104 percent of rated
capacity in 1990 compared to 108 percent in 1989."

     The findings are from the 1990 Annual Survey of Jails, which
included these other findings:

     --An estimated one in every 457 adult U.S. residents was in a
local jail at midyear 1990.

     --There were almost 20 million jail admissions and releases
during the year ending last June 29.

     --The jail population was 91 percent male, 51 percent white,
47 percent black, and 2 percent of other races.  Hispanics of all races
comprised 14 percent of all jail inmates.

     The survey collected additional information from the 508
jurisdictions with at least 100 inmates as an average daily population
in 1988.  These jurisdictions had facilities holding 327,917 inmates
on June 29, 1990, and had the following additional characteristics:

     --Almost nine out of ten of these jurisdictions were holding
inmates for other authorities.  Of the 37,965 inmates held for other
authorities, 24,238 were being held because of crowding elsewhere--
principally in state prisons.

     --Thirty percent of these jurisdictions were under court order
to improve one or more jail conditions, and 28 percent had at least
one jail facility under a court order to limit the number of inmates.

     --The occupancy rate in jurisdictions with large jails fell
from 116 percent in 1989 to 111 percent in 1990.

     --There were 494 inmate deaths from July 1, 1989, through June
29, 1990 in these jails.  Approximately four out of every ten deaths
were from natural causes other than AIDS, and three of every ten were
suicides.  AIDS accounted for 17 percent (up from 14 percent in the
previous 12 months), and accidents or undetermined causes comprised 8
percent.

     Single copies of the Bureau of Justice Statistics bulletin,
"Jail Inmates, 1990," (NCJ-129756), as well as other Bureau of Justice
Statistics publications and statistical information, may be obtained
from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, Box 6000,
Rockville, MD 20850.  The telephone number is 1-301-251-5500.  The
toll-free number from areas other than Maryland and metropolitan
Washington, D.C., 1-800-732-3277.

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