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Often we hear the phrase ―change the conversation ‖ about laws, debates, and issues that deeply affect society. In 1973, fed-eral district judge Marvin Frankel published the book, Criminal Sentence: Law without Order. In this brief, but provocative, book Frankel attacked the current sentencing practices. He said ―that the almost wholly unchecked and sweeping powers we give judges in fashioning sentences are terrifying and intolerable for a society that professes devotion to the rule of law. ‖ He advocated reform of sentencing. As I tell students in my Philosophy of Punishment class, we can understand little of applied moral philosophy without putting things in an historical and social context. In short, the Progressive Era of the late 19 th and early 20th centuries brought in social work-type penology and criminal sentencing, es-pecially the indeterminate sentence (―day-to-life‖), which would allow parole upon the vague notion of attitude or ―rehabilitation. ‖ When the prison reform movements and riots hit such states as California and New York in the 1960s and 1970s, much of the public and numerous politicians held a firm belief that rehabilitative programs, parole and the like, didn‘t work. In Maryland, for example, people learned that the average ―life ‖ sentence was eleven years. The people wanted harsher sentences. We also see through historical accounts that democracies such as ours often have more punitive punishments. Robert Martinson‘s famous article ―What works? ‖ (1974) and Judg