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into a relationship of mutual inter-dependency. However, the traditional functions of the
sentencer and the probation officer and the interplay between these functions were to
provide a focal point for the investigation for community service orders, which would
expose defects in the design of communityservice as a penalty, defects which were directly
attributable to the limitations of common sense pragmatism andpolitical expediency.
Community service has been criticised as being “ambiguous” by Young (1979:50). It seeks
to satisfy and measure-up to every sentencing requirement and is traditionally understood
in the context of punishment and rehabilitation but also in the context of emerging criteria
such as reparation and reintegration of the offender. (Hood :1974, Bottoms:1987). This
“confused” (Pease1981:2) mix of sentencing rationales presented in this pragmatic fashion
by the Wootton Committee Report contrasts sharply with the procedure adopted by the
earlier Royal Commission on the Penal System, which had floundered in debating the
issues of penal policy. By eschewing the requirement to elucidate and rank in priority a
settled philosophy of punishment, the Wootton Committee followed Radzinowiz’s advice
to accept diversityin the purposes of punishment (Radzinowiz 1966:115).
In bringing the proposal for community service forward, the Wootton Committee had to
navigate a course between public acceptability of the proposal, awareness of acute prison
overcrowding and expenditure, the political feasibility of bringing such a measure into law
and the general acceptance bysentencers to transform the newpenal measure into a viable
alternative non-custodial sanction. In negotiating such a difficult course or anticipating
the negotiation of such a difficult course, the Wootton Committee in its deliberations were
subject to varying degrees of accommodation and compromise. Ultimately, the
teleological basis upon which the measure was justified was duly acknowledged by
Baroness Wootton (1977:111) which reflected the pragmatic and common-sense approach
but subject always to the limitations of such an approach (Lonergan 1957). As a result the
objectives of the sanction remainedconfused.
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