You may think that jail is a hard punishment for the convicted and that prison life is as tough as it could possibly be.

But state prison inmates, particularly blacks, have on average a longer life than people on the street, as US government said Sunday.

While in prisons the death rate is an average of 250 per 100,000 annually, as recently reported to the Justice Department by state prison officials, the overall population aged 15 to 64 has a death toll of 308 yearly.

Moreover, for black jailbirds, the toll was 57 % below the overall black population - 206 against 484.

This was not the case of white and Hispanic convicted: both groups had mortality slightly above their groups in the overall population. "12,129 state prisoners died between 2001 through 2004", announced The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. "8 % were murdered or killed themselves, 2 % died of alcohol, drugs or accidental injuries, and 1 % of the deaths could not be explained", the report said.

But most of the deaths (89 %) had medical reasons, of which two-thirds of the prisoners already suffered before they were admitted to prison.

The most common conditions among both men and women in state prisons were heart disease, lung and liver cancer, liver diseases and AIDS-related causes.

Men experienced a higher death toll, 72 % higher than women. About 25 % of the women died of breast, ovarian, cervical or uterine cancer while 4 % of the men succumbed of prostate or testicular cancer.

More than half the prisoners 65 or over who deceased in state prisons were at least 55 when they entered jail. "94 % of the inmates who died from an illness had been evaluated by a medical professional for that illness, and 93 % got medication for it", reported state prison officials.

"89 % of these inmates had gotten X-rays, MRI exams, blood tests and other diagnostic work," state prison officials told the bureau.