The corrections rehabilitative emphasis of the 1960's promised society that offenders would be turned into constructive citizens leading to crime reduction. The system that emerged neither rehabilitated offenders nor treated them justly according to the severity of their crimes; thus, neither society nor the offender benefited from an obsessive concern with offender rehabilitation. Under disillusionment with the effectiveness and fairness of the rehabilitation model, reformers turned toward a more humane and just treatment of offenders. This policy was manifest in the 1970's as courts and legislatures sought to make sentencing and corrections conditions fair and humane for offenders. In the 1980's, however, the pendulum has swung from an emphasis on offender benefits to a focus on public protection by means of punishment and incapacitation. Mandatory sentencing and incarceration emphasis have contributed to prison overcrowding, eroding humane prison conditions and rehabilitative influences. It is time for the pendulum to swing to a more balanced emphasis on offender benefits and public safety. This would involve setting a minimum standard for the humane treatment of offenders, making correctional decisions consistent with the public's abhorrence for crime and need for safety, and providing offenders opportunities to improve their lives. Forty-nine footnotes are listed.