Participants in the leadership forum called upon policymakers and candidates for public office to identify the causes of America's escalating crime rates and apply sufficient resources to reduce crime. They also pointed out that the public will not support reforms that minimize uses of imprisonment until crime is reduced. Instead of using the criminal justice system to reduce crime, the United States must improve the quality of life for its citizens and especially for its children and youth. Because citizens and business interests no longer see the prison systems as competent to prepare inmates for work after release, they support alternatives to incarceration such as home detention, restitution, and community service.