A TOTAL of 2,071,686 people were incarcerated in the United States at the end of last year.


The new figures consolidate the US lead over China and Russia in the total number of people behind bars, according to a list compiled by the British Home Office.

The Chinese prison population was 1.4 million at the end of the 1990s while Russia's did not exceed one million inmates, the list showed.


The US number includes those held in federal, state and local facilities as well as detention centres run by the US military and the Immigration and Naturalisation Service.


Although the prison population rose only 1.3 per cent during 2000 – the smallest annual growth rate since 1972 – the slowdown was not enough to prevent the United States from reaching the two-million mark.


The rate of incarceration at the end of last year was 478 sentenced inmates per 100,000 US residents.