According to a new Justice Department report, the prison and jail population has increased to over 2 million people. One of every 143 people in this country are incarcerated.

These are shocking numbers, and the effect is sure to cause even more havoc with state budgets.

Among the findings for the year 2002:

• 2,033,331 people are being held in U.S. prisons and jails, a 3.7% increase over 2001.

• 700 inmates were added every week.

• Black males from 20 to 39 years old accounted for about a third of all sentenced prison inmates.

• More than 10 percent of the country's black male population between the ages of 25 to 29 were in prison, compared to 2.4 percent of Hispanic males and 1.2 percent of white males in the same age group.

• Since 1995, the number of female prisoners has grown 42 percent while the number of male prisoners has increased 27 percent.

• Only half of all state prisoners were serving time for violent crimes.

• Growth in the federal prison system since 1995 mainly reflected more incarcerated drug offenders, accounting for nearly half of the total increase, and immigration offenders, accounting for more than 20 percent of the rise.

When are our elected officials going to realize that the U.S. cannot jail itself out of its criminal justice problems. They need to adopt alternatives to incarceration for non-violent and drug offenders now.

The Justice Policy Institute, which promotes alternatives to prison, said the nation's use of incarceration is rising again at a time when states can least afford it because of budget shortfalls.

"The prison population and budget figures -- taken together -- should be setting off alarm bells in state capitols,'' Jason Ziedenberg, the institute's director of policy and research, said.

"As legislators are struggling to fund education, health care and stave off spending cuts, many are continuing to choose to pay for an expensive justice system that damages communities and does not produce safe, healthy neighborhoods,'' he said in a statement on the government's latest prisoner survey.