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But he cautioned against over-restricting such tolerance of infractions byprobation officers
in national standards, claiming that they may well structure community service, but they
will not destructure the prison where the anticipated increase of breach procedures would
increase the input into the prison system of offenders on community service, thus
defeatingits original primaryaim.
The use of warning letters, home visits and disciplinaryinterviews continued to be used by
the Probation Service as the main techniques to ensure the successful conclusion of
community service orders. The pressure of a 12 month time limit within which the
community service order is to be completed might be regarded as a positive impetus to
ensure compliance. However, where a client offender fails to commence the community
service within the twelve days prescribed by the national standards and/or fails to attend
regularly throughout the agreed period for community service work, especially in cases of
long community service orders, the pressure to ensure compliance before the year expires
creates difficulties both for the probation officer and the offender who may require an
extension of time bythe court to complete the order.
The immediate effect of the standardisation of compliance procedures, which came about
by the introduction of the national standards in 1989, was a reversal of the decline in the
use of community service orders by the courts. This may have been due to increased
confidence by sentencers in the penalty as a result of a perception that community service
would be subject to less probationising influences and would reflect more closely the
sentencers original intention that the order was to be completed without unnecessarydelay
andavoidance (Lloyd 1991)
As noted, the confidence by sentencing courts in the due execution of sentences tends to
be reflected in the frequency in which such courts resort to particular types of disposal.
The current perceptions and practices of the Irish Judges interviewed in this study reveal
approaches which reflect the full range of probation practices both before and after the
introduction of national standards in England and Wales. In response to the question
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