Primary Justifying Aim of Community Service by Offenders

• NCJ Number: 73013
• Author(s): S A Thorvaldson
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 22 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper presented at the Fourth Symposium on Restitution and Community Service Sentencing, Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 24-26, 1980.

Annotation

This Canadian paper defines community service (CS) predominantly as reparative in aim, with the aim defined as requiring offenders to repay the victim(s) of their offenses, including the community-at-large, in order to foster an awareness of the concept of justice in the offenders concerned or in the public.

Abstract

This paper concludes that none of the conventional sentencing aims is satisfactory as a justification for making offenders work on public or charitable tasks as a consequence of crime. CS lacks sufficient punitive intent to make it a good retributive, denunciatory, or deterrent sentence. Nor is CS incapacitating to any serious degree or rehabilitative in the traditional sense of the term. It must be concluded that it is the reparative element, i.e., the offender gives something of value back to society as a consequence of violating the law, which represents its essential justifying rationale. With this theoretical basis in mind, legislative and administrative issues which must be addressed regarding CS programs include eligibility criteria, duration of order, legislation providing for CS as a separate sanction, administrative authority, service recipients, types of service, due process considerations, and the voluntary nature of CS. A total of 9 reference notes are included.