NCJ Number
178414
Journal
International Criminal Justice Review Volume: 8 Dated: 1998 Pages: 1-14
Date Published
1998
Length
14 pages
Annotation
Recent research compared persons in the Netherlands who received a community service order to persons sentenced to a short prison term to determine the effect of community service on recidivism and on net widening.
Abstract
The Netherlands introduced community service in 1981 to reduce the use of short-term imprisonment. Community service became a popular sentence in that the number of community service orders increased from 213 in 1981 to 12,737 in 1995. However, it appears that the work sentence is not always being used as an alternative to short-term incarceration; it is used as an alternative to nonincarcerative sentences as well. Data from a representative sample of 879 adults sentenced to community service in 1987 and a group of 946 persons of the same age and sex who received short-term prison sentences, were used to study the nature and scope of criminal offenses committed before and for 5 years after the imposition of the sanctions in 1987. It was concluded that the lower level of recidivism for the community service group resulted from their fewer previous police records rather than from the type of sentence. A second study focused on the net-widening effort of the community service order. A sample of 600 persons sentenced to community service in 1992 was compared to 233 persons who received short-term prison sentences and 367 persons who received partially unconditional prison sentences of 6 months or less in the same year. Results indicated that community service occupies a distinct place somewhere between the unconditional and the suspended prison sentence. The goals of less recidivism and the reduction of unconditional short-term imprisonment were only partially achieved at best. Comparisons with other countries, figures, footnotes, and 11 references (Author abstract modified)