Community justice: Sustainable alternatives to custody
The Scottish Government wants to increase the proportion of people given community sentences, rather than prison time.
They have been shown to be more effective at reducing reoffending and less costly than prison.
But little progress has been made.
59 per cent of offenders received a community sentence in 2016/17. That figure then fell to 55 per cent in 2018/19, before returning to 59 per cent in 2019/20.