The 1982 Criminal Justice Act laid down new statutory guidelines for the imposition of custodial sentences on offenders aged under 21; custody was to be a sanction of last resort when the offender seemed unwilling to respond to non-custodial penalties, when the public was threatened, or when the offense was too serious to justify an alternative punishment. After several years, these criteria helped to reduce the number of incarcerated young offenders by providing a focus of argument in appeals against inappropriate custodial sentences. The 1988 Criminal Justice Act clarified the criteria under which youthful offenders could be sentenced to custody; as a result, the number of custodial sentences passed on young people was reduced even further. The latest legislation basically applies similar statutory criteria to the sentencing of adult offenders by stipulating the conditions under which custodial sentences may be invoked and governing the length of the sentences. This report contains selected Court of Appeal judgments from 1983 through 1988 and from 1988 to the present to illustrate the impact of the two earlier statutes on the imposition of custodial sentences. 4 appendixes