A 1982 survey indicates that conditions in local jails may be even worse. In Arkansas, for example, all county jails are above capacity, and half are under court orders to reduce crowding or otherwise improve facilities. Response to overcrowding has been twofold. Some States have viewed the situation as temporary crisis and have sought a quick fix that may include liberal allocations of good time, extensive use of re-entry furloughs, and reduced revocations from supervised release. Another reaction has been to call for a reasoned policy response. Proposals have included modification of penal codes to reduce sentence lengths, mandatory sentences, and decriminalization of certain behaviors; prosecutorial diversion of offenders to community programs; increased use of noncustodial sanctions and reductions of sentence lengths, and refinement of prisoner classification methods to minimize prison terms. Other proposals have called for studies of the appropriate use of probation and systems for ranking offense seriousness and the offender profile-sentence severity relationship. Also needed will be studies of the effects of local discretionary decisions by police, prosecutors, and courts on jail/prison crowding. 8 references.