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particularly in cases of drunk-driving where there was no previous conviction. 45 Two
Judges in separate focus groups acknowledged that they might occasionally use a
community service order where no custodial sentence is immediately contemplated,
especially in cases where heavy fines are otherwise imposed or where the offender may be
deemedto be in needof structure in his/her lifestyle.
However, if the sanction of community service is decoupled from the necessity to impose
a custodial sentence, it is argued that community service would be used much more
extensively by judges in the District Court in lieu of fines, probation orders and even
conditional discharges. Such use would not be in keeping with the use of community
service as an alternative to custody but rather would be used much more extensively by
District Court Judges as an alternative to other non-custodial sanctions.
Arguably, the result of such an increase in the use of community service in this manner
would be to increase the number of persons in prison on the basis that the compliance rate
with community service in Ireland is 81% of all community service orders, which figure is
very close to the international average of compliance with community service (Walsh and
Sexton 1999, Comptroller andAuditor General Value for Money2004).
It is argued that if community service is decoupled from its pre-custodial requirement and
used as a generalised sanction, it would be difficult to limit the discretionary jurisdiction in
sentencing by judges as advocated by the Expert Group (1999). If the sanction was to be
used as suggested, significant costs would follow upon the expansion in the use of the
sanction. Moreover it is probable that a greater number of offenders might enter into
prison upon breach if the scheme was used as a generalised penalty. Accordingly any
further discussion upon the uncoupling of community service from the pre-custodial
requirement must specifically address the significant costs attendant upon such expansion
andthe likelihoodof increasingthe number of committals to prison.
When questioned about the likely practices which might result from decoupling
community service from the prior custodial requirement, a number of judges expressed a
preference for it as follows:
45 The studyseems to identifyone District Court areawhere this practice is prevalent. The datamayhave been skewedas aresult of this practice in this particular District Court area.
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