Although I wish to deal in this paper with possible alternatives to imprisonment, I will in effect be dealing with the broader question : toward what kind of penal system ought we to be working ? I will discuss alternatives to prison mainly in the context of a Tanzania building a Socialist Society, but much of this material is also applicable to the other countries in East Africa, and perhaps elsewhere. A fundamental assumption of this discussion is that the aim of the penal system is to reduce crime, and that an important method of doing so is to reform criminals who are consigned to it from the judicial process (1). It is, of course, official policy of the Tanzania Prison Service that rehabilitation or reform is the main objective in the treatment of offenders (2).