From their beginning, prisons have ostensibly sought to change prisoners into lawabiding citizens. In an effort to structure rehabilitation into prison life, indeterminate sentencing was adopted so as to make the custodial period vary according to the rehabilitation progression of each inmate. The rehabilitation movement failed to achieve its goals largely because prison administrators and personnel were geared primarily toward providing secure custody and a disciplinary structure for inmates. Indeterminate sentencing even became a tool for manipulating inmates to obey prison rules. The system of indeterminate sentencing further encouraged inmates to become actors and manipulators so as to appear to give the decisionmakers what they desired before release would be granted. The backlash against the failures of the rehabilitation movement has produced mandatory and determinate sentencing that gives little attention to rehabilitation programs. Rehabilitation, however, does occur in individual instances where motivated inmates have the opportunity to benefit from positive influences and skills training. Efforts to diminish the costs of rehabilitation programs will deny motivated inmates the guidance required for changing their lives. Further, the law and order posture that seeks longer mandatory prison terms will increase prison overcrowding and the inhumaneness of the prison environment. The costly policy of imprisonment is thus likely to give way to methods of technological incapacitation, whereby various mechanisms may be used to monitor and control an offender's movements, thoughts, and feelings while living in the community. Eight references are listed.