Radical changes in State sentencing laws were precipitated by the prisoners' rights movement and other factors. This prison viewpoint ignores offenders who have avoided prison after felony conviction and the likelihood that prisoners will detest any sentencing system. Thus, while prisoners are a proper sample for assessing conditions within the prison walls, they are a biased sample of consumers of the prison system. Determinate sentencing provides prison sentences that are not routinely reviewed or reduced by a parole board, although the distribution of the discretionary power formerly held by these agencies varies dramatically among States. Under the determinate system, the amount of discretion remains high, and the only significant reductions have been mandatory minimum sentences. Legislative responses to just deserts sentencing have retained judicial discretion to choose between prison and probation because providing prison for everyone could double the flow into overcrowded prisons and give even more sentencing power to prosecutors who determine charges and bargain. Future reformers should consider that any prison construction is a direct function of sentencing policy; some value may exist in viewing sentencing policy as rationing scarce prison space in accordance with what the State sees as its most pressing problems; and current increases in prison populations are caused by the numbers of people sent to prison, not the longer sentences imposed by the new mandatory laws. The paper contains 50 footnotes.