This book explores and clarifies the principles, current practices, and implementation problems of "get tough on crime" legislation that has been America's dominant response to crime during the past two decades. In evaluating the impact of these reforms on courts, prisons, and crime, a theory of criminal sentencing reform is built and applied to the data across 47 States over almost 30 years. It relies on original analyses that yield interesting research findings and interpretations. The author argues that policymakers tend to reduce complex reality to a simplistic form that predicts policy consequences, and they tend to adhere to criminological theories that have policy implications consistent with their policy choices. The theory of criminal sentencing reform explains various causal links that connect the following factors: sentencing reform policies, sentencing behavior, the size of the prison population, and crime. 234 references and a subject index