Ms Oonagh McPhillips:

Can I add something? I can correspond with the Chair if that is preferred. I know the diversion from prison in the first place and dealing with offenders without imprisoning them is an area of interest to the Chair. The Probation Service does amazing work in this space. It dealt with 16,989 offenders in the community in 2023. I do not have the recidivism rate for probation to hand, but it is considerably lower than for those who have been imprisoned, as one would expect.