The law, enacted in 1973, dealt with four major concerns: increasing institutional costs at the State level, limited local correctional services, overlapping correctional jurisdictions, and a lack of uniform standards for delivering correctional services. The law provides an incentive for participating counties to deal with certain types of offenders locally and establishes a subsidy to help participating counties in developing local correctional services. However, data are currently lacking on the act's impact. The evaluation aims to determine the act's results, costs, and the relationship between results and cost. Three possible goals for the act have been identified: public protection, economy, and encouragement of appropriate treatment of offenders. The three types of evaluation design to be used in the assessment of CCA are multiple time-series design, pretest/posttest design, and use of statistical controls. Specific areas to be investigated are improvement of local correctional services, retention of offenders in the community, and appropriateness of sanctions. Other areas to be assessed are protection of the public, economy, efficiency, and social justice. For each subject area, details of evaluation methods and variables are presented. The general methodology and data sources are presented. For example, protection of the public will be evaluated by examining separately the behaviors of adult offenders and juvenile offenders treated in the community. Tables, footnotes, and charts are included.