Public Act 99-861 (PA 99-861), effective January 1, 2017, was an outgrowth of the Commission on Criminal Justice & Sentencing Reform (the Commission) created in 2015 by Governor Bruce Rauner. Public Act 99-861 implemented recommendation 12, which sought to strengthen the statutory preference for probation by requiring the sentencing judge to state on the record the reasons for a prison sentence, including why probation or conditional discharge was not appropriate, when imposing a sentence for a Class 3 or Class 4 felony on an offender with no history of violent crime or a prior sentence to probation. The Commission members shared an interest in developing a “feedback loop” that would allow analysis of the outcomes of the policies and procedures implemented because of the Commission’s work. Public Act 99-861 therefore included a requirement that SPAC report on the law’s impact on sentencing trends for the designated group of individuals, the prison population, and the racial demographics of those sentenced pursuant to the new provision. The report provides a 36 month follow-up to Public Act 99-861.