The proposed implementation strategy is derived from Ohlin's (1986) model that bases program implementation on five groups of 'actors.' Implementation begins with political processes associated with the mobilization of persons sympathetic to treatment programs. Next, constituents and political partisans must endorse rehabilitation programs for offenders. Politicians and formal decisionmaking groups must then be convinced of the value of rehabilitative policies that will guide the correctional system. Factors that obstruct the implementation process are lack of support for rehabilitation among correctional administrators and among inmates. Program implementation under suboptimal conditions should focus on countering inmate alienation and assimilation into the prison subculture. New rehabilitation programs must be initiated as experimental projects, preferably with the assistance of someone outside the correctional organization who mobilizes resources for the project. Other steps in implementing programs under suboptimal conditions are goal setting, the selection of inmates for participation, inmate input for program rules, and the development of numerical measures of program performance. 100 references.