Community Service as a Form of Correction Essay

Introduction

Since the eighteenth century, the capability of prisons to serve its main purpose of reforming and re-integrating offenders has been put under scrutiny. Starting from Howard’s study in the eighteenth century, prisons have been found to be no more effective than other intermediate sanctions like community service. Recently, more studies have been conducted and the same conclusion has been confirmed. With several works portraying the negative aspects of imprisonment, including Sykes study on the pains of prison, many of the stakeholders have reconsidered their imprisonment decisions to other alternatives. Of these alternatives, community service has been one of the most employed and therefore opened a room for debates with the proponents feeling that the option is a remedy to all the prison problems while the opponents feeling that community service is not the way out. To this extend, this paper will outline the advantages and disadvantages of community service as an alternative to imprisonment and therefore show whether the government should go ahead with encouraging the move or revert to the old tradition of imprisonment.

According to Walgrave (1994), community service, “means all tasks accomplished for the benefit of a public or private social institution, as a compensation for the transgression of a rule imposed on an offender by a judicial institution.” In 1966, the State of California started this form of punishment and it was meant only for traffic offenders and later spread to other white-collar offenders. Although some people view this as a measure that is not punitive, some scholars argue that this form of punishment acts as a means by which offenders are made to atone for their wrongdoing while the community benefits from the service offered by the offender (Conrad 1990).

Advantages of Community Service

Statistics have shown that community service leads to positive behavior after the sentence. Through these statistics, a conclusion can be made that the more the offender is engaged in community participation, the more the chances that he will not recidivate. As Wilkinson (2000) found out in his research study, the rate of recidivism for individuals who were not involved in community service was 36.2 percent while those who participated in community service had a rate of 27/9 percent. In addition, the study found out that more hours of participation led to less chances of recidivism. Those offenders who had more than 100 hours of community service had 26.1 percent chances of recidivating as compared to the 36.2 for those who had not participated in any form of community work. In the case of re-incarceration, the chances of an increase in the gravity of the offence for the re-incarcerated offenders who had participated in community service only increased by 1.51 months on average while those who did not participate in community service recorded an average increase in the gravity of the crimes committed and hence the sentence by 8.29 months.

These findings are an accurate indicator that while prison custody serves as a corrective measure in many countries, the use of community-based approaches could as well have a better result as compared to this method. Consequently, it, therefore, means that there are some advantages associated with this method that lead to these positive results. Let us, therefore, view the advantages of using this method.

One of the greatest contributions of this form of punishment is that it offers the offender a sense of self-worth and responsibility. By feeling responsible, the offender learns to attain job skills which are very essential as a corrective measure. Through such works, the offenders are given an opportunity to identify skills that they previously never knew and put them in use and hence discover their value something that they had not known previously. This solves one of the greatest problems that has been hindering corrective programs and thus resulted in high recidivism; the problem of lack of employment (Elikan, 1996).

Another distinct benefit of using this type of correction comes in terms of overcrowding in prisons. Many studies have shown that managing overcrowded prisons is a daunting task. It is therefore important that some of the prisoners are taken outside for community service. Through these work programs, the offenders usually get something that occupies them and makes them feel that they are doing some meaningful act. This eventually creates in them a sense of responsibility and eventually changes their attitude towards criminal activities. This is very important when it comes to the reduction of recidivism. Reduced recidivism leads to a reduced population in prison and hence curbs the problem of overcrowding. As it goes, failure to allow offenders to participate in productive work directly translates to the same attitude after their term. They will maintain the same attitude of not participating in productive work (Elikan 1996). In a study in Australia, it was found out that resorting to a community-based approach to offenders who are sentenced to less than six months would lead to great benefits in terms of decongestion. In the study, if this group of offenders was given non-custodial corrective measures, the number of imprisonments per week could reduce from 150 to 90. This could translate to a 10% decrease in the prison population in New South Wales and translate to a savings of $33 to 47 per year in prisoner housing costs (Whelan, 2005).

Using community service and other community-based corrective measures reduces the number of prison deaths and thus saves lives of the disadvantaged societies. A good example was found in a study in Australia. In this study, it was found out that as the number of indigenous offenders increased in jail, the number of custody deaths for the same group equally increased. As a recommendation, one of the solutions to avoiding rampant deaths in custody for indigenous people was through avoiding their imprisonment and assigning them community service. This shows that community-based corrective measures lead to reduced custody deaths for less privileged societies like the indigenous people (Whelan, 2005).

In the case of women’s imprisonment, there has been a debate on how the children who are basically dependant on the woman are going to be taken care of. Community-based corrective measures offer a solution to this big problem. While the government could have incurred great losses while trying to employ childminders. In addition, the availability of female supervisors was found wanting, and that there was no gender balance in workgroups to ensure good care of women in prison. These problems have given the department of corrections a headache in trying to establish the best way to correct women. But with the availability of community-based measures, the women will be in a position to cater to the community as a result of their crime but at the same time be in a position to cater for their families both emotionally and physically (Information Service Unit, 2001). Apart from women’s cases, it has also been argued that community-based correction measures always play a great role in the maintenance of the family unit. In a discussion by a focus group in Uganda, it was found that this form of punishment contributed positively to the cohesion of the family. In one case in Uganda, an offender was given the opportunity to visit his sick wife. In addition, the offenders are in a position to attend to their businesses and therefore ensure a continuous income and hence an ability to cater for their families (Birungi 2007). Furthermore, the offenders usually stand a chance of getting employed from the same institutions that they were offering their services during their prison terms. As clearly exhibited by one of the offenders in the study by Birungi who is currently employed as a specialist in banana grafting a skill he acquired during his prison term.

In his research, Birungi (2007) points out that community-based corrective measures have great benefits to the community. His research-based in the Masaka and Mukono districts of Uganda proved that 90% of the community members were happy and satisfied with the services offered by the offenders to the community. They were able to outline the benefits that they had accrued from the services. In the Mukono district, for example, the offenders were made to plant a banana plantation that is currently used as a model plantation for the inhabitants. In addition, they have engaged in flower growing which has contributed to the beautification of the place. In another episode, the offenders have engaged themselves in a brick-making project in one of the schools around. These bricks are used as a construction material for the school, a direct benefit that leads to the reduced costs of a building.

Another very important advantage of this form of correction is the fact that it gives the community at large the perception that they are part and parcel of the justice administration. Through the involvement of the offended community in administrating and benefiting and seeing with their own eyes as the perpetrator undertake his community service makes them feel like part of the criminal justice system by allowing them to participate in the process of administrating justice (Roodt 2001).

Disadvantages of community-based corrective Measures

As mentioned above, there have been debates concerning the issue of community-based corrective measures. This means that this form of correcting has its disadvantages. This section of the paper will therefore identify the negative side of the same phenomenon. According to the Center for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London, the policies implemented by the government concerning imprisonment so as to reduce overpopulation in the UK jails have failed. The organization purports that the initiative has not only failed through its inability to arrest the growth of the population in prisons, but it is offering an increase in the rate of arrests and thus contributing to a greater number of people in prisons (CCJS, 2009).

One of the greatest drawbacks is the inappropriate use of these measures by the judiciary. The findings by the CCJS show that these sentences are being passed without proper consideration and that they are being passed too often and without being appropriate. Within its inception in 2005, the sentences had increased in the UK by fifteenfold. According to the study, a good number of the cases were summary offenses without grave seriousness. In addition, the outlook of these punitive measures has transformed and become tougher than originally expected. More sentences are resulting in the use of curfews and unpaid jobs. Finally, the study has also found that most of these measures are not serving their real purpose which was to reduce the population in prison. The prison population seems to be growing alongside the measures. In fact, the sentences are said to be substituting the issue of fines rather than the prison population (CCJS 2009). This position was also echoed by Roberts (2004) who argued that while the main aim of this measure was to reduce the population of prisons, they have ultimately failed. In his argument, the failure can be attributed to their limited use during jurisdiction. The greatest reason for this has been their inability to show the power of denunciation and that they don’t exhibit punitive muscles. Instead, the real reasons for reducing costs of maintenance and restorative goals fail to compensate for punitive measures of a punishment that would lead to the denunciation of crime and the ability of punishment to hold an offender accountable for his actions.

Another great threat this program has is the inability for it to identify suitable candidates. This is to say, some offenders put under this form of corrective ness can change their perception of crime and turn into good people who are beneficial to the community while others tend to be encouraged by the perception that the punishment is light and hence engage in criminal activities. This was evidenced by the Information service unit study which showed that the application of this form of punishment to women to solve the problems that were involved in the complex nature of women imprisonment led to an increase in the population of women which kept rising since the inception of the program in 1987 to 1998. In the study, it was found that the number of women populations in prison rose steadily to a hundred percent increase from 1993 to 1998 to a population of 3,110. This means that the population of women in prison increased during the time when the program was being implemented (Roberts, 2004).

Supervision over these groups of offenders poses another problem and weakness of this program. Several studies have shown that the people responsible for these supervisions have been unable to adequately implement the supervisory work properly leading to absconding of duty by the offenders. This is more evident in the cases where the government fails to participate through disbursing of adequate funds. With insufficient funds, the process of supervision becomes dwarfed leading to instances of absconding duty and thus losing the corrective aspect of the program which is the ultimate principle. This was very evident in the implementation of the program in Uganda. According to the research, the greatest problem was the funding of the project which eventually resulted in the inability of the supervisors to ensure that all the offenders were working at their assigned stations. Most of the respondents pointed out that there were no adequate transportation facilities to the expansive regions that the offenders were working thus leading to failure to supervise them (Birungi, 2007).

Conclusion

From the points highlighted above about the pros and cons of Community Service as a Form of Correction, it is evident that the program has failed to serve its ultimate purpose which was to decongest the prisons. This could easily lead to a complete discarding of the idea. However, a closer look at the benefits makes one come up with another thought. Due to the fact that most of the failure is attributed to lack of funding and poor implementation, it is therefore important to recommend that a more defined and clear way of implementation be made. In addition, the government should be engaged fully in the implementation of the program through funding so as to facilitate the movements of the supervisors. Finally, the judiciary should engage in a more defined way of applying this sentence. This could curb the problem of its misuse. With all these put in order, it is evident that the program has benefits that will not only be experienced by the offenders or the government but also by the community at large.

References

1. Birungi, Charles. 2007. Community Service in Uganda as an Alternative to Imprisonment. Mini-Thesis. University of the Western Cape.
2. Center for Crime and Justice Studies. 2009. community Sentences Fuelling Prison Expansion Problem, New Report Suggests.
3. Conrad, J.P. 1990. Concluding comments: VORP and the correctional future. In B. Galaway and J. Hudson (Eds.). Criminal justice, restitution, and reconciliation. Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.
4. Elikann, P.T. (1996). The tough-on-crime myth: Real solutions to cut crime. New York: Insight Books.
5. Information Service Unit. 2001. community sentence for women: Where Have They Gone? Probation and Community Corrections Officers’ Association.
6. Roberts, Julian. 2004. The Virtual Prison: Community Custody and the Evolution of Imprisonment. London: Cambridge University Press
7. Roodt, M. 2001. Participation, Civil Society and Development: Development Theory, Policy and Practices. Eds. Coetzee, J. Graaf, J., Hendrick, F., and Wood, G., South Africa: Oxford University Press.
8. Walgrave, L. 1994. In Search of a Constructive Alternative in the Judicial Response to Juvenile Crime. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research. 2: 57-75
9. Wilkinson, Reginald. 2000. The Impact of Community Service Work on Ohio State Prisoners: A Restorative Justice Perspective and Overview.
10. Whelan, Justin. 2005. Community Based Sentencing Inquiry Submission. Uniting Care.