The prison overcrowding, uncoordinated legislative base, lack of clear direction, and lack of coordination of various parts of the Australian correctional system all point to the need for major reforms. Victoria initiated such reforms in 1984. Major elements included providing community-based programs to divert people from the criminal justice system, limiting the imprisonment rate to 50 per 100,000, developing sentencing and corrections legislation to support the strategy, regaining the confidence of the courts and the public by providing appropriately supervised community-based programs, and improving management of the group for whom imprisonment is appropriate. The reforms rest on philosophical, legislative, and administrative bases and have allowed Victoria to maintain a stable rate of imprisonment when other States have experienced dramatic increases in their prisoner populations. Similar approaches should be used throughout the nation, because Australia cannot continue to afford the enormous economic burden associated with corrections processes that rely on imprisonment.