Changing public attitudes about the relative seriousness of different offenses, evidence of inconsistent sentencing practices among judges, increasing governmental concerns about escalating costs of criminal justice, and support for a return to more traditional conceptions of criminal justice in the wake of loss of faith in individualistic rehabilitative responses to offending have all given sharper focus to the sentencing reform agenda. Case studies of sentencing reform initiatives in the United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, England, and Wales illustrate the impetus for and dynamics of sentencing changes. The focus is on the politics of punishment and sentencing, proportionality and parsimony in sentencing guidelines, and sentencing reform across national boundaries. Tables, figures, and footnotes