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Show FEDERAL prisons ended the fiscal fis-cal year with a prisoner population popu-lation of 21,555, nearly a thousand over the same date a year ago. The total would have climbed even higher, says Director James V. Bennett, but for the shortage of transportation funds available to United States Marshalls during June, with the result that additional addition-al scores of sentenced prisoners were held in local jails awaiting commitment to federal prisons. Although Federal institutions had become increasingly overcrowded in recent years and the abnormal 1958 population growth complicated compli-cated this situation, Bennett said the Bureau of Prisons succssfully contained the additional pressures imposed upon its facilities and personnel per-sonnel complements. Escapes, rising ris-ing slightly in number, remained proportionately at the low rate of previous years. The severe overcrowding over-crowding created minor tensions pmong prisoner populations, but the federal prison system experienced experi-enced no major disorders during the year. Committed to federal prisons during the twelve-month period were 13,460 offenders, with auto theft cases comprising the largest single group, nearly a fourth of the total. Also represented in the commitments com-mitments were 2,100 liquor law violators, 1,348 immigration rases, 1,239 forgers, and 1,096 narcotic and marihuana offenders. The Director Di-rector commented that the number num-ber of juvenile delinquents received re-ceived by his Institutions, exclusive exclu-sive of those committed by the District of Columbia Juvenile Court, was exactly equal to the 1957 total, 855. Operated in conjunction with the Bureau of Prisons, Federal Prisons Pri-sons Industries, Inc., which Director Di-rector Bennett also serves as Commissioner, closed out the most successful year in its history. The Corporation, whose customers are restricted by law to government agencies, sold more than $30,000,-000 $30,000,-000 in goods and services during the year. Its profits totaled $5,500,-000 $5,500,-000 from which a substantial div. idend will be paid into the Treasury Treas-ury of the United States. The Corporation during the 1958 fiscal year employed 4,300 inmates on a full-time basis, paying them average monthly wages of $33 and furnishing them valuable vocational vocation-al training which wotdd enable them tj qualify for industrial jobs upon their relase. At the end of the year the Corporation was still engaged in a long-range program of constructing additional vocational voca-tional and industrial facilities to accommodate a greater proportion of the swelling federal prison pop. ulation. |