The North Carolina Structured Sentencing Act was adopted and implemented in order to give the judge a specific set of standards to follow when sentencing a person. There was a need to change the way that criminals were sentenced in order to lower the prison population, and ensure that the people that were spending time in prison were there for necessary reasons, and that they were serving an adequate amount of time based on their criminal history, and their current level of crime. The structured sentencing act put fair and clear cut guidelines for a judge to follow, while ensuring the publics interest was still being looked after.