The Commission sought simultaneously to express a professional consensus about desirable methods for justice administration and to declare an agenda for the system's evolutionary reform. It regarded crime as a social problem that is based in poverty and social disorganization and is best controlled through social programs. This perspective contrasts with the perspective than crime is an indication of a breakdown in social order and is best contained through tough controls on those who disregard the social order. The past 30 years have experienced a public contest between these two perspectives. The apparent repudiation of the Commission's main theses overlooks the reality that the assumptions that guided the Commission and the main strategies it recommended are strong elements of policymaking and emerging strategies for the justice system of the next century. The Commission's vision never received strong public support, but much of what the Commission sought remains vital. Future policy will be the product of the three central factors emphasized by the Commission: the information base, social structural trends and their impacts on crime, and the role of politics in crime control policymaking. 57 references