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Thus, against this bleak background of recognised failure bythe prison either to reform by
long-term sentences or to deter the commission of further offences upon release, the
belief, but not necessarily the knowledge, that non-custodial sentences might prove more
successful as an alternative emerged(Brody1976; Lipton 1974; Martinson 1974).
(iv). The Search for Alternatives
In the political arena, both sides of the political debate maintained that the root causes of
crime and its continuance as a social problem emerged from quite different sources. The
British Labour Party Study Group (1964) suggested the continuance and indeed the
paradoxical increase in crime during the same period was due to insufficient application of
resources to areas of need such as housing, education and employment. On the other hand
the Conservative icon Mr Enoch Powell attributed the increase in criminal behaviour to
the abrogation of personal responsibility engendered by the very same social collectivism
of the Welfare State (Young1979:13).
Despite these divergent explanations of the phenomenon of continuing crime in an era of
social provision, the search for an alternative to custodial sentences proceededapace. This
was so, notwithstanding the existence of a number of other non-custodial sanctions
available to sentencers in the period preceding the introduction of community service
orders. The AdvisoryCouncil on the Treatment of Offenders (ACTO Home Office 1957)
encouraged the use of non-custodial measures by the Courts and appeared to accept that
existing measures if properly used were quite adequate as sentencing measures in the
disposal of criminal cases. These sentencing measures which comprised mainly the fine,
the probation order and the conditional discharge were increasingly subject to criticism for
quite differing reasons. The fine procedure suffered significantly from problems of
enforcement, coupled with restrictions imposed by the Criminal Justice Act 1967, Section
44, which limited the power of Magistrates to commit fine defaulters to prison.
Concomitantly, the use of probation orders was called into question, with emerging studies
showing little or indeed negative efficacy(Hammond 1957). Although the introduction of
community service orders preceded the epochal study of Martinson (1974), certain
sentiments were current about the use and scope of probation orders from the 1950s
onwards. Barbara Wootton, who would emerge as a key figure in the emergence of
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