The U.S. economy increasingly offers and is fueled by jobs that demand skills, education, and attitudes that poor, urban populations have little chance of acquiring. Thus, youth turn to crime because they are unable to compete in the conventional economy. Likewise, single-parent families are increasing, and so more children are growing up in poverty and are being raised in criminogenic conditions. Consequently, youth find it difficult to identify with definitions of conventional behavior that are the foundation of criminal law. The best predictors of the future of corrections are relevant trends in the past. If these trends continue, incarceration rates will remain high, and inmate populations will be drawn from unskilled, poor, powerless, and angry populations who come from dysfunctional households and dangerous environments. The current conservative legislative agenda focuses on the imprisonment of the poor rather than on a strategy to upgrade the social and economic conditions that contribute to criminality. Current plans to balance the Federal budget involve significant cuts in public housing, food stamps, and aid to families with dependent children. Under such a strategy, incarceration rates will remain high, fueled by the interaction among demographic and social conditions that have always promoted criminal behavior and the prevalent assumption that such behavior can be controlled through more and tougher punishment.