America's prisons are becoming too expensive to build, too crowded to operate, and too ineffective to withstand scrutiny as a deterrent to crime. Although the United States holds a higher percentage of its people in prison than any other country in the Western world and the addition of 3,000 inmates each month is straining its prisons to the breaking point, the United States has the highest crime of any Western nation. As States have found that the billions of dollars spent to build and maintain prisons have failed to halt the spread of crime, some of them are responding to proposals for handling offenders outside of prisons. The choices available to the States include remanding offenders to community corrections programs, shortening sentences and eliminating mandatory sentences for specific crimes, and accelerating the release of prisoners through parole when State prison populations reach intolerable limits. Each of these alternatives can reduce pressure on State budgets and available prison space, and each can be an effective way of dealing with the nonviolent offender. Although the public has in recent years been demanding stiffer penalties, mandatory sentences, and reduced authority for parole boards, the strained State budgets and Reagan's efforts to contain Federal spending are making it impossible to expand or even maintain the cost of huge prison populations. This will create a climate of receptivity to cost-effective alternatives to imprisonment.