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The Wootton Committee anticipated a positive feature of community service which was
later confirmed and which would be seen to significantly influence the subsequent
behaviour of offenders sentenced to community service, namely, the optimal matching of
specific offenders to community service schemes which would best suit their potential to
reintegrate them more fully with society on completion of the order (Mc Ivor 1998:56).
The caution expressed by the Wootton Committee to resist the tendency to deal with
communityservice offenders in large scale offender onlyprojects is recognised implicitlyin
this perspective. The reintegrative potential of working with beneficiaries may lead to
personal reassessment of behaviours, cognitions and life-style by an individual offender
when placed on a scheme which challenges the offender’s world view. McIvor has found
in this regard:
In many instances, it seems, contact with the beneficiaries gave offenders an insight
into other people and an increased insight into themselves; the acquisition of skills
had instilled in them greater confidence and self esteem; and the experience of
completing their community service orders placed them in a position where they
could enjoy reciprocal relationships – gaining the trust, confidence and appreciation
of other people and having the opportunityto give something back to them (McIvor
1998:55).
She identifies a placement within optimal community service schemes as a “vehicle
through which an informal yet potential powerful process of close social modelling may
occur” (McIvor 1998:56). The inclusion of close social modelling in community service
would however require the tailoring of community service orders in combination with
probation orders to maximise the modellingeffect for change in offender behaviour. 20
20 The potential to include a probation aspect in a communityservice order is nowprovided for in England and Wales under the Criminal Justice Act 1991 in the so-called combination
orders.
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