Although people still talk of offenders 'getting probation', what that now means is that the offender receives a Community Order. Since April 2005, all community penalties are delivered by the court through the Community Order.

The Community Order may include any number of a menu of thirteen requirements. These include drug or alcohol treatment and testing, electronic monitoring (tagging), curfew, living at a specified address, unpaid work, doing or refraining from doing certain things or entering certain places, or attending certain offending behaviour programmes.

An offender is considered to have breached a Community Order if they fail to comply with a requirement or commit another offence while the Order is still in force. If they do they will go back to court, and the court may decide to send them to prison.