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simultaneouslydivertingthe investigator awayfrom more fruitful analysis of community
service such as the cultural determinants andcurrent penal practices which will be
discussedpresently. Byuse of this methodof analysis makes a convincingargument to
suggest that communityservice is a discrete modern penal sanction.
The emergence of the sanction in 1972 in England and Wales therefore, may be seen not
as a result of some inevitable unfolding of historical logic or the re-manifestation of
previously deployed and abandoned penalties. In this sense community service may be
saidto have a longpast but a distinctlyshort history(Kilcommins 2002).
The historical roots of communityservice remain contested, as is evidencedabove, but the
evolution of communityservice over the 33 years of its existence in England andWales
also reveals certain dynamics which, when examined, disclose a sanction originallyposited
as a denial of leisure time for the performance of voluntarywork, tasks of a social or
personal service to the community. A significant feature of the penaltyaccordingto the
Wootton Committee was that the sanction wouldhave a punitive ‘bite’ accordingto
sentencers. Increasinglythe character of communityservice has changedover the 33 year
periodto be renamedin EnglandandWales as a “communitypunishment order” in the
Criminal Justice andCourt Services Act, 2000 with some sentencers expressing views that
those given communityservice orders should in effect suffer physicallybyhavingto break
into a sweat when performingcommunityservice, to suffering shame in public bywearing
distinctive orange work vests to identifythe convictedoffenders as such. While the
introduction of communityservice is contestedin terms of historical antecedents, the
contemporarylandscape of penal philosophyrelating to communityservice has not
remainedstatic either.
While the legislative architecture of the modern penalty of community service
accommodates the denial of leisure time as a central purpose by excluding the use of the
sanction for times which would interfere with employment, religious duties and education
and in this sense the sanction must be considered unique, the introduction of community
service did not come about without significant pressures from more contemporary
exigencies such as prison overcrowding and costs which will be discussed in the next
section. In that context it may be unwise to regard the introduction of the community
service order solely from a perspective of criminological or penological theory as the
hidden hand of pragmatismmayequallyhave providedthe critical momentum to introduce
communityservice in response to immediate problems relatingto the use of prisons.
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