County jails have experienced tremendous population increases since 1978, and inmate riots in two county facilities were directly related to overcrowding. However, voters defeated a prison bond issue in 1981 which would have funded jail improvements and construction. Many factors contribute to overcrowding in New York State's jails: pretrial detention; inappropriate placements of the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, public inebriates, and youth; sentencing policies such as longer sentences, weekend sentences, and mandatory sentences for gun law violations; delays in processing defendants; and State classification policies according to Section 500-c of the Correction Law. Because of overcrowding, jail administrators are often forced to utilize housing space inappropriately, board inmates with other counties, or fall into noncompliance with standards in Section 500-c. Alternatives to incarceration that have been used successfully in New York State include bail funds, community service and restitution, community dispute resolution, conditional release, release on recognizance, employment assistance, and halfway houses. Specific programs described in this report include Client Specific Planning, an alternative sentencing planning service offered to defense attorneys and their clients by the New York Center for Sentencing Alternatives in Syracuse, the Vera Institute's New York City Community Service Sentencing Project, the Suffolk County Correctional Facility Overcrowding Policy Committee, and the Westchester County Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime Program. The report supplies 44 footnotes.