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significant debate in subsequent studies and commentaries (McIvor 1992; Hood 1974;
Bottoms 1984; Pease 1975, 1977, 1980; Young 1979). The competing sentencing
rationales of punishment, rehabilitation, reparation and deterrents lie uneasilyin the penalty
of community service especially where the Wootton Committee expressed the hope that
those required to perform community service would see their participation as a vehicle for
change in outlook rather than as a whollynegative or punitive experience. The conflicting
sentencing rationales of community service emerged as a central area of enquiry in the
years following the introduction of community service, yielding interesting views among
offenders as to the purpose of community service, either as punishment or as an agent of
behavioural change (McIvor 1992:93-94).
Some years after the introduction of community service under the Criminal Justice Act of
1972 Baroness Wootton reflected upon the criticism that community service orders lacked
any consistent underlying philosophy and concluded: ‘and even if in the end the CSO, as
judged bythis standard proves no more successful than imprisonment, at least it can claim
both to be cheaper and have some productive result to its credit’ (Wootton 1977:111).
But perhaps the reference that ‘fashions in sentencing come and go and it will largely be
the recommendations of probation officers which determine whether the rising popularity
of community service is just a flash in the pan, or whether this new sentence becomes a
powerful and lasting addition to our armoury’, (Wootton 1977:112) may prove more
revelatory of the Wootton Committee’s original state of knowledge and sense of direction
when grappling with this innovatory penalty in 1970. The clear understanding that the
sanction might be introduced on an experimental basis and then evaluated before any
further decision might be made to expand the scheme nation-wide, speaks also of the
Wootton Committee’s sense of caution in makingthis radical recommendation.
The sub-Committee was faced with a dilemma, perhaps of its own making, when it set
itself the task of giving adequate answers to all of the sentencing demands. In bringing
forward the idea of communityservice the Wootton Committee believed it had a proposal
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