The short answer to that is no, and I'll tell you why.
On a conditional sentence, which is somewhere between half to two-thirds or longer than a jail sentence—and I'm talking about serious matters, about sexual assaults where they've been issued, or serious assaults with violence.... By serious, I mean there has been a punch-up and somebody has wound up with bruises, and it's not the sort of thing where there's a suspended sentence. When you have that sort of matter and a lengthy conditional sentence order is imposed, offenders know that if they don't follow the rules, the sentence will be collapsed.
Before they get that sentence, defence counsel goes in with a plan, with a program: here's the counselling we're proposing; he's going to work these hours at this place. With the curfew, he'll be out for seven or eight hours maybe—whatever the job takes—and then he's home for the rest of the night. It's 24-hour-a-day house arrest, with the exception of going out to work.
Or if it's a student...what about students? Well, if they go to jail, they don't continue their education, or they don't continue some good things that might have taken place between the time of the offence and when they're sentenced—because that can be a critical period. When they are looking ahead to the moment when they're being sentenced, it can be a very reflective time. As one person said, there's nothing like a hanging to focus your attention. They're thinking, what do I want to do with my life?
The defence counsel goes in with the program—here's the counselling, and here's what we're going to do—and the judge takes a look at all of it and sentences the individual. If they don't follow through, they're going to jail.
The kinds of programs you can get in a community are simply not available within a jail setting. They can come out as bad as they went in to jail.