We are very active, as Marisha pointed out, in making recommendations and suggestions to judges for sentences. For many of the clients we work with, because of their criminal records, there is no way a judge would ordinarily release them. So what are very common conditional sentences for our clients are sentences, for example, that will require them to go to a treatment program and complete an addiction treatment program. As part of our work, we help the client fill out the forms to get there, we pay for the bus to get there. Those sorts of things are very common.
There are often quite rigorous requirements to make people follow through. We have clients who are literally under house arrest, and it's not “sitting around watching TV” house arrest. Most of our clients don't live in places where they have access to a lot of luxuries, so they're very real. There are requirements to do specific things. Often the judges ask the individuals to come back and report on what they're doing during the course of the conditional sentence.
Certainly our experiences with conditional sentences are not that it's just go away and pretend to do something for six months. If the judge doesn't have concerns for safety, the judge can look to probation as an option. Conditional sentences allow for things like treatment requirements, taking people to get diagnoses to see if they have mental health issues. All those things we see regularly dealt with by way of a conditional sentence.