NCJ Number
79531
Date Published
1980
Length
54 pages
Annotation
Some of the assumptions underlying the expansion of community service sentencing are examined, and relevant statutes, caselaw, and legislative developments are reviewed, followed by an appraisal of some of the possible legal or constitutional conflicts community service may pose.
Abstract
The primary basis for the current interest in community service orders is its use as an alternative to incarceration. In addition, community service has been viewed as a voluntary offender activity that has therapeutic value. The danger of the use of community service is that it has emerged in an absence of authorizing legislation, largely under the parameters of judicial discretion. In this circumstance, it may be another extension of social control in a vacuum of procedural and substantive rules. Legislation is needed to establish community service as an independent sentence. Further, such legislation would give attention to issues of administrative detail, liability protection, procedural regularity, and substantive propriety in areas such as avoiding disparity in who is required to serve, for how long, in what types of service, and for what types of recipients. Enabling community service to stand as a separate sentence would also divorce it from its customary marriage to probation. This would free probation officers to devote themselves to intensive supervision as an alternative to institutionalization, while focusing on the development of other personnel to administer community service. Also, establishing community service as a sentence in its own right would increase its visibility and use by the courts. A total of 220 footnotes are listed. (Author summary modified)