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These issues were examined in this chapter with a viewto placing communityservice as an
emerging penalty in the political, economic, social and penological context and in the
period during which it emerged. In particular, there emerged a growing sense of
confidence that the concept of “community”, a particularly difficult concept to concretize,
could act as a catalyst for change in a number of areas of social life, including the
rehabilitation of offenders. The identification of a vibrant voluntary social services
movement combined to provide a distinct opportunity to introduce a new penalty in the
early1970s, as communityservice and voluntaryservice were seen to merge issues of social
cohesion and repair. These essential factors for the introduction of community service in
England and Wales at that time were analysed to elucidate the timely emergence of the
sanction. And finally, the not insubstantial role of pragmatism was examined as a factor
in the emergence of community service in light of economic exigencies and the projected
cost of maintainingan ever-increasingprison population.
Timing, it is said, is everything in politics. The promotion of a Bill in Parliament to
include the new penalty of community service (Section 15, Criminal Justice Act, 1972)
allowed the introduction of the sanction, albeit on an experimental basis initially, as
recommended by the Wootton Committee, at a time when public sentiment was well
disposed to changes in the punishment of offenders. The emphasis on reparation by
offenders, if not directly to victims, but certainly to society as a surrogate, appealed to the
public, politicians and the media.
Having traced the emergence of community service through the deliberations of the
Wootton Committee and parliamentary debates, community service emerges as a penalty
which is claimed to satisfy all forms of sentencing objectives from the condign and
punitive, through reparation for harm done to society and victims, through rehabilitation
and the final reintegration of offenders back into their communities. This optimistic
prescription emerges in response to the somewhat bleak outlook expressedto the Wootton
Committee bysentencers on the efficacyof current sentences at that time.
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