Federal Judge Anthony Alaimo probably was not thinking about innovation in 1974 when he ruled in the case of Guthrie v. Ault that the Georgia State Prison in Reedsville was seriously overcrowded and that the prison must remain under his jurisdiction until the state alleviated that condition. Yet, for the better part of a decade—until overcrowding could be reduced and the prison finally returned to state jurisdiction—Judge Alaimo's ruling would preoccupy the Georgia Department of Corrections and serve as a stimulus to innovation in the entire corrections system.

The result, in addition to improved conditions in Reedsville, was an array of alternatives to incarceration. In five years, these alternatives have saved the state an estimated $150 million and have taken pressure off a prison system that otherwise would have burst at the seams. Moreover, the program has written a new chapter in the history of American penology. Since the program offers judges a flexible range of sentencing options, they are better able to select a punishment that fits the crime, reserving incarceration for offenses serious enough to merit it while still meting out appropriate punishments for lesser offenses.

At least 20 other states have embraced one or more of these five cost-effective alternatives to putting offenders in prison. The program has received considerable attention from the national media and has done much to boost the department's stock with the governor and the legislature.

FROM CHAIN GANG TO MODEL PENOLOGY

All in all, not bad for a state whose reputation for chain-gang penology was not entirely undeserved as recently as 15 years ago.

David C. Evans, who became Commissioner of the Department of Corrections in 1976, contends that it was the severe overcrowding in Georgia prisons, not the Guthrie decision itself, that pushed state