The first measure is how much the Commission contributed to setting both positive and negative baselines for how a concerned society should react to deviant and harmful behavior. The report had a community focus. It defined the crime problem, documented the numbers of people affected by crime, and emphasized crime prevention and community involvement. The emphasis on prevention through the elimination of poverty, family dysfunction, and unemployment has not been as predominant a theme of debate over the last 30 years as the authors had hoped. However, community involvement seems to have taken firmer hold recently. The second measure is the number of useful innovations and new solutions it has put on the national agenda. The Commission introduced many technological improvements and initiated the concept of community policing, but the country rejected its proposals on sentencing, especially its emphasis on community-based alternatives to remote, high-security prisons. The third measure is the dedicated people it sent forth to continue working on the issues it examined. Finally, the repetitive patterns of poverty, childhood abuse, early juvenile delinquency, poor schooling, and drug involvement confirm the Commission's essential message. This message is that a free society cannot meet the challenge of crime without deeper involvement of all citizens and without major public policy initiatives.