During the first half of the 1990s, States spent nearly $15 billion and added some 400,000 beds to alleviate prison overcrowding. That increase in capacity, coupled with a significant slowdown in the prison population growth rate since 1994, has brought the construction boom to an end. However, throughout the Nation, thousands of inmates still are lacking beds, basic medical assistance, and sufficient oversight. For the most part these are not prison problems, but jail problems. More than 70 percent of the jail inmates are drug users. Mandatory sentences for drug users and dealers and three- or even two-strike laws in many States result in clogged criminal justice systems and more time in holding pens (State and local jails) for those facing charges. Taxpayers are unwilling to pay for more expansion of jails, forcing local corrections officials to resort to electronic monitoring and other types of pretrial supervision; work-release and community service initiatives; substance-abuse programs; "good behavior" and "time-served" provisions; and privatization of jail operations.