Recommendation 120

We also heard about deferred sentences. Dr Graham told us that Scottish sheriff courts can decide to “defer sentence for approximately six months” during which the offender is supported and supervised, and to “sentence at the end of that”, giving courts a greater opportunity to monitor progress. 235 The Probation Board of Northern Ireland told us about the “Substance Misuse Court (SMC) which was introduced in Belfast Magistrates’ Court at Laganside in April 2018”: “it places people on intensive treatment programmes in the community to specifically target drug and alcohol linked offending behaviour, with final sentencing reflecting their participation.” They explained that “evaluations have indicated that those successfully completing the programme exhibited lower longer-term re-offending rates than those who did not”. 236