Incarceration has been the controlling philosophy of corrections policy in the United States throughout its history. As a result, reform efforts have been coopted by the need to adapt changes to the requirements and limits of prison management. The result has been a history of change without substantive reform. The experience of community-based corrections in Delaware shows that as long as these programs are implemented within a correctional system which is ideologically committed to incarceration, the system will absorb them as an organizational device to relieve overcrowding, to further the illusion of rehabilitation, and to deflect demands for substantive reform. However, the foundation of American corrections needs to change. The 60-percent recidivism rate demonstrates what in any other context would be regarded as massive failure. The correctional establishment must adopt decarceration as its primary focus and must try to get and keep as many people as possible out of institutions. This goal is the only way to guarantee the continuous evaluation of the extent, severity, and effectiveness of incarceration. Adopting this goal would mean that confinement would be the alternative of last resort and would assure that the risks of community-based corrections would be weighted against those that would occur in its absence. Footnotes are provided.