Washington:The US prison population, already the largest in the world, grew by 1.9 per cent in 2004, leaving federal jails at 40 per cent over capacity, according to Justice Department figures released yesterday.
Inmates in federal, state, local and other prisons in the US totaled nearly 2.3 million at the end of last year, the government said.
According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College in London, there are more people behind bars in the United States than in any other country.
China had the second-largest prison population with 1.5 million prisoners, according to statistics updated in April and cited by King's College.
The total US population is about 296 million, while China's is 1.3 billion.
The Justice Department said the US incarceration rate hit 486 sentenced inmates per 100,000 last year, up 18 per cent from 411 a decade ago.
The number od convicts in US prisons continued to grow last year even though reports of violent crime during 2004 were at the lowest level since the government began compiling statistics 32 years ago, according to a government report released in September.
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