Advocating social control through Human Responsibility Enhancement strategies, the recommendations involve fundamental systemic change and creative approaches that might eliminate the cycle of increased prisons and sentencing which perpetuates crime and violence. Among the 20 criteria for selection of alternatives are reserving incarceration as a last resort, treating root causal factors, addressing the needs of victims, and involving all affected groups--ex-offenders, offenders, community groups, and others in the planning process. Representative alternatives are of seven types--(1) decriminalization, (2) pretrial, (3) postadjudicative, (4) least incarceration, (5) prerelease and early release, (6) maximum security classification, and (7) exoffender re-entry. In addition, some actual programs consistent with the criteria for alternatives to incarceration are described, including negotiation of warrants, neighborhood conflict resolution, filed release citation programs, community service sentences, halfway houses, and a number of alternatives to detention of juveniles. Recommendations for a society-wide approach to implementation of these objectives are also offered. They involve the establishment in each jurisdiction of an Alternatives Policy and Program Commission, charged with the translation of the viable alternatives concept from policy into programmatic action. Sixteen references are included.