The study surveyed the general public and criminal justice participants in Illinois to measure the conscience prevailing in the State during sentencing reform. Results suggest that the specifics of the determinate sentencing law implemented in Illinois did not represent a corruption of conscience. Instead, it appears that the law, while shaped by the structure of interests in the State, also largely conformed to existing attitudes regarding criminal sanctioning. Further, the combination of conscience and convenience dictated that neither a conservative nor a liberal model of determinate sentencing would be fully instituted. In effect, a piecemeal reform was passed which promised to get tough on crime but whose unanticipated consequences may prove troubling. Data tables, notes, and about 80 references are supplied. (Author abstract modified)