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But when the relatively low level of usage of community service generally is considered in
light of the strongly expressed preference by judges to allow community service as a
sanction in itself, it is possible to discern a much more fundamental issue. This relates to
the reluctance of some judges to subscribe to the principle that community service should
ever be used in place of a real custodial sentence. It is difficult to come directly to this
conclusion from the replies which will be disclosed presently. However, the statistical data
disclosed in the Comptroller and Auditor General survey in 2004 and the Petrus Value for
Money report (2009) both point to significantly low displacement of custodial sentences
bythe substitution of communityservice .
However, it is possible from the focus groups and interviews to identifyfactors which may
be seen to promote the greater use of the sanction. Moreover, some discrete issues are
identified which inhibit the use of the community service order. This study reveals a
certain consistencywith the Walsh and Sexton Study(1999) where the sanction is primarily
found to be used in the District Court for offences which by virtue of that Court’s
jurisdiction are relatively minor. However, within that jurisdiction, the sanction is utilised
for offences at the more serious endof the scale.
How do the Courts use the Sanction?
As previously noted, one of the most significant issues to emerge in the study was the
strong desire byjudges to utilise the sanction as a penaltyin itself and without reference to
any custodial consideration. The relatively lowuse of the sanction generally might suggest
that judges are reluctant to depart from the strictures of sec. 2 of the Act by using it
nonetheless as a stand alone penaltyas if sec. 2 did not apply. On the other hand the same
low level of usage at present might equally point to a reasonably widespread view among
judges that communityservice is not a realistic alternative to an actual custodial sentence at
all. Consequently some judges may not subscribe to the principle that community service
can displace the custodial sentence andhence theydo not use it as such.
One interviewee judge put the choice of community service as a sanction in stark terms –
“is it custody or is it not” A8J1SC. He opined that community service as an alternative to
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