TASMANIA'S prison population has more murderers, alleged and convicted, per capita than anywhere in the country, new jail data shows.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 73 of the state's 495 prisoners are doing time for homicide or related offices, equating to 14.7 per cent of the prison population.
The state with the next highest rate of incarcerated murderers is South Australia - colloquially known as Australia's serial killer capital - followed by Queensland.
The ACT had the lowest proportion of prisoners jailed for homicide.
Nearly 20 per cent of Tasmanian prisoners were in jail for violent crimes, excluding homicide.
The data included prisoners who had been sentenced and those on remand.
Tasmania was the only state beside New South Wales which witnessed a drop in its prisoner population.
Between 2011 and 2012, the number of Tasmanian prisoners fell 3 per cent.
Nationally, the number of female prisoners is growing at a faster rate than males.
The number of women behind bars has increased 8.4 per cent over the last year and 48 per cent since 2002.
The number of male prisoners only increased by 0.4 per cent and 29 per cent respectively, during the same periods.
At last count, there were 2201 females in Australia's prisons from a total of 29,383 prisoners.
With 43 women behind bars, Tasmania had the second-highest proportion of female prisoners behind Western Australia.
The amount of time Tasmanian prisoners spent waiting in remand for trial or sentencing was the lowest in the country.
The median age of a Tasmanian prisoner was 32, the second-youngest behind the ACT.
