For each of the reform strategies reviewed, the nonincarcerative options were transformed to serve criminal justice system values and goals other than the reduction of the prison population. Sentencing alternatives such as restitution and community service enhanced the sanctions of probation and fines instead of replacing incarceration. Postincarcerative release programs often escalated the level of control over clients and served primarily to control populations within prison systems. Community corrections legislation is less likely to reduce incarceration than to change the location of imprisonment from the State institutions to county jails. Initial declines in State prison commitments tend to be neutralized by modifying other sentencing or release policies that increase prison populations. Progress in sentencing alternatives will remain frustrated until reforms are implemented more carefully and until proponents of alternatives test their ideologies with rigorous research. Also, a new political consensus must emerge outside the criminal justice system, in which the values of punishment and public safety are rationally balanced with fiscal constraints and competing claims for public revenue. 66 footnotes.