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greater emphasis to the role of community service as an alternative to prison when
introducing the Bill into Parliament. Having identified people who had committed minor
offences as the target group for such alternative sanctions, the Home Secretary was quite
clear to state that if communityservice is not carried out as ordered “the alternative will be
to go to jail” (H.C. Deb.vol.826.col.972).
The Parliamentary Debates emphasised the growing problems of increasing prison
populations and community service was identified by a number of speakers as a suitable
alternative to imprisonment, containing sufficient punitive and controlling features of the
offender, while in the community. The presence of elements of retribution and reparation
in the new penalty allowed for political and social acceptability for its introduction, where
previously public sentiment about the existing non-custodial sanctions such as the
suspended sentence, the fine and probation had been criticised as far too lenient.
Accordingly the public impression expressed through the media was that community
service was primarilyto be an alternative to imprisonment (Pease 1980). This facilitated its
operationalisation as public sentiment was generallydisposedtowards the sanction.
The Home Office Research Unit Study (Pease et al 1977) deployed a number of methods
to measure the degree of diversion from custody of offenders placed on community
service. Three of the four methods used indicated figures for such diversion of between
45% and 50%. The earlier experience in the use of the suspended sentence as a
mechanism to divert offenders from prison is instructive in this regard (Bottoms 1981).
Research by Oatham and Simon (1972) showed that ‘of all persons awarded a suspended
sentence only somewhere between 40% and 50% would, but for the new provision, have
been sentenced to imprisonment for the original offence’ (Oatham and Simon 1972). The
Home Office Research Unit (Pease et al 1977) concluded that community service provided
a 49% displacement from custodybut these overall figures do not give anyviewof the use
of community service between courts where one court might regard community service as
an alternative to custody in about every case, whereas in another court community service
might be allowed as an alternative to other non-custodial penalties. This can lead to
inequities in the calculation of the hours of community service and in cases where breach
of community service is initiated, the alternative penalty would likely be custodial in the
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