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the year 2006 for a whole year survey and a quarter or 1 in 4 sample was taken from the
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court records as these were much more extensive. This allowed a
clear picture to emerge of the use of the part suspended sentence for these two combined
Circuit Criminal Courts. 5 It is argued that such a whole and partial sample allows for the
generalisability as a use of the part suspended sentence across the entire Circuit Criminal
Court jurisdiction. The use of the part suspended sentence in the Central Criminal Court
was ascertained byexamining the entire case load of the court for the year 2006 to discern
how the court combined custodial sentences with part suspended sentences. 6 The
frequencyof use of the whollysuspended sentence in the District Court was not capable of
calculation until the writer examined raw data sets in the Circuit and District Court
Directorate of the Courts Service. 7 This allowed the writer to place the suspended sentence
in the District Court in context having regard to the use of other sanctions such as
custodial sentences, communityservice orders, fines andprobation.
PRESENTATION
This thesis is presented in seven chapters with a separate conclusion. Both sanctions are
separately considered to allow a clear outline for each sanction to emerge. Occasionally
reference maybe made to the other sanction, especiallywhere respondents link or compare
themin their replies.
In Chapter 1 the community service order is introduced as a new sanction which is made
available to sentencers for the first time. The factors and influences which led to the
introduction of the sanction in England and Wales are examined in detail. 8 The
community service idea is traced through the deliberations of the Wooton Committee
which identified reparation and rehabilitation of offenders as preferable objectives in
sentencing. The growth in prison numbers is presented as the primary impetus for the
consideration of new sanctions which might divert offenders from the prison system. A
certain rebalancing of sentencing priorities is suggested where the community itself is
posited both as a place for punishment and a recipient of reparation. The sentencing
5 These courts represent 5 citycourts, 2 in Cork and 3 in Dublin. Moreover theyrepresent the busiest circuit criminal courts in the countryand were an obvious choice for the samples
andsurveytaken.
6 The rawdatawas made available to the writer viathe registrar of the Central Criminal Court Mr. LiamConvey(28 Dec. 2007).
7 These dataare not publishedseparatelyfromdataon custodial sentences.
8 The jurisdiction where formal communityservice was initiallyintroduced.
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