Even though crime has been declining for six years, stiffer sentencing is driving up prison populations. A new Justice Department reports pegs the increase in the prison population at 5.2 percent in 1997.

• Since 1990, the number of Americans in local jails and in state and federal prisons shot up from 1.1 million to 1,725,842 last year.

• Among the specific reasons for continued growth in the prison population are longer sentences, reduced use of parole, increased arrests and re-imprisonment of parole violators, and improved efficiency by the police in solving crimes since there are fewer of them to solve.

• Per capita incarceration rates were highest in Texas and Louisiana and lowest in North Dakota, Minnesota, Maine and Vermont.

• Violent offenses accounted for the largest source of growth in the number of male prisoners last year -- while drug crimes accounted for much of the female population growth.

An increasing number of prisoners are being incarcerated for parole violations -- about 30 percent today versus 15 percent in 1980.