In practice it is very similar to a conditional sentence. In many ways, I believe it's better than a conditional sentence, because we have such consistent monitoring of the participant who's in the program. The resolution, if there's some sort of breach, is not simply that they're back in jail or that they get to stay out of jail. There's room to work on modifying their behaviour along the way so that the behaviour doesn't repeat.
On December 8th, 2009. See this statement in context.