WASHINGTON — Local jails grew more crowded between 1983 and 1988 as new construction failed to keep pace with a 54-percent increase in the number of prisoners, the Justice Department said Sunday.

The size of housing space for each inmate shrank 6 percent from 54.3 square feet in 1983 to 50.9 square feet in 1988 despite a 43.7 percent increase in total jail space, according to a study by the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. Maine jails ranked No. 8 in average living space per inmate.

A census of the nation’s 3,316 jails found that on June 30, 1988, there were 341,636 prisoners living in 17.4 million square feet. Five years earlier, 223,272 inmates occupied 12.1 million square feet of living space.

The bureau’s study found that 28 percent of the nation’s jails in 1988 housed more than 40 percent of their inmates in cells that were smaller than the recommended standard of 60 square feet.

In 1983, only 23 percent of the jails housed inmates in cells that were smaller than the standard recommended by the American Correctional Association.

The proportion of jails placing five or more people in a “housing unit” increased from 24 percent in 1983 to 28 percent in 1988, the study said, and the average occupancy rose from 2.4 inmates per unit to 2.5 inmates.

In 1988, 61 percent of all jail inmates lived in the most crowded facilities.

Local jails hired an additional 29,000 guards — a 65-percent increase — during this period, reducing the ratio of inmates per guard from 5.0 in 1983 to 4.6 in 1988.

Jails in New Jersey were the most cramped — averaging 39.6 square feet per inmate. The most spacious jails were in North Dakota, where the average inmate had 88.8 square feet of living space.

Eight other states had jails with cells that were smaller than the national average of 50.9 square feet. They were: Virginia, 40.4; Tennessee, 42.3; California, 43.0; Louisiana, 43.1; Georgia, 43.9; Texas, 44.0; Massachusetts, 49.0, and South Carolina, 49.6.

Besides North Dakota, the largest living spaces for inmates were in Montana, 76.7 square feet per inmate; Wyoming, 76.1; Iowa, 75.6; Nevada, 70.5; Idaho, 69.9; Minnesota, 66.8, and Maine, 65.5.

The rest of the states surveyed had jails with an average cell size exceeding 50.9 square feet per inmate.

The study included all locally run facilities for holding defendants after arraignment in 44 states and the District of Columbia. Temporary holding cells and lockups were not included in the study.

Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont were not included in the study because they have combined jail-prison systems. Alaska’s prison-jail system was also not included, but five separate local jails in the state were included.