8. To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what progress he has made on the development of community-based sentencing as an alternative to prison in Northern Ireland. (144671)

9. To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what alternatives to prison are being developed in Northern Ireland; and what assessment has been made of the effectiveness of those measures. (144672)

14. To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what progress has been made in developing community-based sentencing as an effective alternative to prison in Northern Ireland. (144678)

Good progress is being made in developing community-based alternatives to prison—particularly in relation to youth offending where our new system of youth conferencing recently extended across the whole of Northern Ireland. It has enormous potential to divert young people from custody, satisfy the victims of crime that they have a say in the way in which crime is dealt with, and cut re-offending rates significantly.