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CONCLUSION
This chapter examined the factors and influences which led to the introduction of
community service in the jurisdiction of England and Wales, the jurisdiction which the
writer contends was the overarching influence on the introduction of the same sanction in
the Republic of Ireland. Contemporary influences from NewZealand were examined, as
were other earlier experiments in other jurisdictions. While claims to the first sightings of
community service might be made in respect of NewZealand, the U.S. and Germany, the
first formal community service order emerges in the jurisdiction of England and Wales in
1972. More critically, the historical claims to parentage of community service are
contested. Undoubtedly, the historical deployment of convicts in the performance of
manual labour, and in defence of the State through impressment in the navyand armycan
be categorised as work related dispositions. Nevertheless, the modern penalty of
community service must be seen as a discrete penalty which amounts to a denial of leisure
time, a concept not easily transposed to the eighteenth century unless one was born into
the wealthy aristocracy. Accordingly the finite and contained nature of the community
service order cannot be easilycomparedto earlier work related dispositions.
Despite the enduring tendencyof the institution of the prison to survive and even to grow,
this phenomenon was not unaccompanied by widespread critical comment on the efficacy
of such an institution and its role in the punishment and rehabilitation of offenders.
Moreover, the emerging focus of sentencing to include consideration of reparation for
crimes and the reintegration of the offender into society could not be advanced without
the development of different forms of penalty which would allow for the practical
expression of such reparation to societyand reintegration in a communitysetting.
Disillusionment by sentencers with the traditional forms of punishment, such as fines and
imprisonment and even probation, called forth a need to devise a penalty suitable for the
modern era which was neither a simple “let off” by way of a fine nor too harsh a penalty
bywayof incarceration.
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