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CHAPTER 2
COMMUNITY SERVICE ORDERS PUTTING THE IDEA INTO PRACTICE
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter the operation of community service orders in England and Wales will be
discussed in detail to explore those features of the newly devised sanction which best
suited its success and also those features which, for theoretical or practical reasons,
militatedagainst its optimal implementation. The chapter initiallyexamines the selection of
the Probation Service as the agency considered best suited to implement the community
service scheme. However, as a result of this selection it will be revealed how such a
mediating role between the Courts and offenders on community service schemes was to
have a transforming effect upon the ethos of the Probation Service and its professional
orientation. The traditional discretionarypractices of the probation officer are examined in
light of the challenges presented in supervising an offender on community service within a
punitive paradigm. The chapter then moves on to examine the claim that community
service is primarily a penalty imposed as an alternative to custody and seeks to locate the
tariff position of the penalty in everyday practice. A number of studies are examined to
elucidate community service as an alternative to custody and its role in the reduction of
recidivism andgeneral offendingbehaviour.
Specific operational standards were introduced for communityservice orders 16 years after
the scheme became established. The presence or absence of such standards is examined
with particular reference to compliance issues by offenders and possible judicial
perceptions of these changes. Finally, the enduring role of community service in the
general scheme of penalties is discussed with particular reference to entrenched practices
by sentencers and the Probation Service and how such practices may promote or negate
the original sentencing objectives which were claimed for the penalty when it was first
introduced.
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