To assist policymakers in placing this topic in historical context, the handbook presents a brief overview and a discussion of how indeterminate sentencing works. It then summarizes how the determinate model has been interpreted by legislation passed in Maine, California, Indiana, and Illinois and proposed in Federal bills. Based on the experiences and legislation of those States with determinate sentencing, the handbook outlines some of the distinctive features of the determinate sentencing approach, including its emphasis on the retributive, deterrent, and incapacitative purposes of imprisonment and its attempts to limit the discretionary sentencing powers of the judiciary. In addition, the handbook presents a summary of recent research that has focused on the impact that determinate sentencing may have on prison populations, length of incarceration, and severity of sentences. Finally, major issues raised by the trend toward determinate sentencing are addressed, including the concern for sentence lengths, prison population, sentencing disparity, retroactivity, 'good time' credits, the effects on staff and programs, and the impact of determinate sentencing on the interrelated components of the crimal justice system. It is concluded that the use of determinate sentencing may result in larger prison populations with more minority group inmates and changes in the social climate of the prisons. Whether inmates will actually serve longer terms of incarceration under determinate sentencing is unknown due to a lack of research in this area. Tables, notes, and 42 references are supplied. (Author abstract modified)