Community Service Sentences
Alternattive to Prison for Minor Non-Violent Crimes
Understanding Community Service
Community service is an intermediate sanction given instead of or with fines or jail for minor and non-violent offenses. A community service sentence orders an offender to provide a certain number of hours of work, service, or labor to the community. It must be at an approved facility or location for legitimate organizations, or for the benefit of the community. It is supervised, and verified. Community service might entail digging a ditch, picking up litter, or speaking to high school students about the dangers of drunk driving and underage drinking. The goals of community service are to restore the community, increase the offender’s ability to attain/maintain gainful employment, and to rehabilitate the criminal.
Benefits
There are benefits and drawbacks to community service for the jurisdiction and the offender. Avoiding custodial or financial sentences has advantages for both offenders and courts based upon cost effectiveness. The offender is spared the disgrace of prison and the negative influence that mark has on life thereafter. The offender can continue a reasonably normal family/social life.
For the courts, cost effectiveness is the key, and community service is cost-effective in short term, and aids in preventing prison overcrowding. This is known to be a hot button issue, and almost anything positive that helps overcrowding is often smiled upon if it shows mild effectiveness. Supporters believe that the sentence is restorative, humane, and effective. Community service can build networks that benefit the offender personally and professionally, and provide valuable learning opportunities.
Drawbacks
Drawbacks to community service include the risk of recidivism while under sanction and the risk that the Court will again have to see the offender for a new crime. Further, if the offender does re-offend, the new offense in question could be much more serious, raising the query, if they had been locked up, would they have had the opportunity to commit the new crime? Public perception of community service as a slap on the wrist is can be a downfall judges and prosecutors, who fall under the influence of politics to a degree. While slightly over half of citizens surveyed do favor community service, there are still many who don’t value the method as a viable form of justice.
Individual Mindset
It is difficult to know when community service might be effective or might not be effective. Someone who is already sorry for what they did may be more open to community service having an effect on them than someone who has a “whatever” type attitude. According to Reforming and Revitalizing, there are obviously cases where community service obviously will not be an effective sentence. Due to the attitude of the offender, or more obviously, the nature of the offense, prison is sometimes the harsh but necessary and called for punishment
Final Analysis
Judges believe in the power of community service. The sentence benefits the community, reduces jail over-crowding, and offers victim restoration to the community as a victim. Perhaps the issue deserves more study. Through continued study, continuing education for judges and attorneys, cooperative offenders and increased public awareness of the actual fruits of community service, perhaps a more definitive picture will emerge. Presently, it appears unlikely that this sanction will decline as an alternate to more harsh sentences for lesser crimes anytime soon.
Community service has become a popular sanction
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