Population of US prisons swells, forcing makeshifts

The US prison population jumped by more than 20,000 in the first haft of 1981 , forcing some states to use tents, prefabricated buildings, and double bunking to house inmates, according to a Justice Department report. State are federal prison held almost 350,000 inmates on June 30, 1981.

Prison added more prisoners during the first half of 1981 than in all of the previous year. If the trend continues, the prison population will grow by more than 10 percent this year, the report indicated.