In coming to its conclusions, the Commission overlooked the potential growth of prison populations, the development of prisoners' rights, and research that pointed to the failure of rehabilitation. The inability of the Commission to anticipate this great change was due in part to the dynamics of and time pressures on a presidential commission. The change was precipitated by a social and intellectual crisis analogous to 'scientific paradigm' revolution described by Thomas Kuhn (1970). The crisis that led to a change in thinking about punishment was part of the large crisis of the political legitimacy of liberalism. (Publisher abstract)