During the 1980's, the State legislature adopted a number of sentencing reforms including the abolition of parole and indeterminate sentencing and the enactment of various mandatory minimum and habitual offender sentencing laws. The habitual offender laws are having a particularly dramatic impact on the size and characteristics of the increasing Florida prison population. However, these laws are based on the flawed assumptions, including the assumptions that incarcerating these offenders for periods of 10-20 years will reduce Florida's crime rate and that the costs of corrections will be offset by savings to the public in terms of reduced crime rates and victim losses. Unless dramatic and substantial sentencing reforms are immediately adopted, the State will experience either a massive crowding situation or an equally massive prison construction and expansion program costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Therefore, legislation is needed to correct the major defects of the current sentencing structure. If implemented, these recommendations will eliminate current deficiencies and avert large expenditures, without jeopardizing public safety. Tables, figures, and footnotes