NCJ Number
204290
Date Published
2003
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This chapter explores the sanction of community services for juvenile offending and how it fits within a restorative justice framework.
Abstract
Community service can be viewed in different ways and thus can fit into many different legal frameworks; community service can be considered as punishment, as rehabilitation, or as restorative measure. Legal frameworks aside, generally the response to juvenile offending depends upon how the juvenile offending is perceived. If juvenile offending is scene as a breakdown or absence of social links, the sanction of community service can be viewed as an attempt to restore those links with society and with the victim. Whether community service functions as a tool for getting youth to accept responsibility for their actions depends largely on whether the youth views the sanction as judicially fair. Evaluations of the impact of community service from a restorative perspective are scant at best. In this chapter, the success of community service can be measured on the basis of the effective completion of the work ordered and the youth’s perspective of the sanction. Understanding the young offender’s point of view is essential in evaluating community service from a restorative perspective because this type of sanction is called for to restore social links to the community and to the victim. The attitudes of young offenders towards community service sanctions tend to fall into one of three categories: it is either viewed as a positive experience, a less costly solution than juvenile detention, or it is rejected as a sanction outright, even when the alternative is detention. Finally, three case studies are presented that illustrate different attitudes toward community service sanctions. The case studies illustrate that a young person’s perception of the sanction depends on that person’s relationship with society in terms of exclusion or integration. In one case, the youth viewed community service as an opportunity to get his life together; the second case involved a youth who viewed community service simply as a nasty alternative to incarceration; while the third youth refused the community service altogether in favor of incarceration. In the end, all three youth viewed the sanction as either protectionist or penal. Thus, community service is not viewed as a restorative measure by youth, which is logical given that its restorative aspect is not clearly defined. Notes, references