NCJ Number
101231
Journal
Canadian Journal of Criminology Volume: 28 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1986) Pages: 157-169
Date Published
1986
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This study interviewed key people involved in the development of the Ontario (Canada) community service order (CSO) program and examined CSO files to determine why CSO's spread so rapidly from 1977 through 1983 before they had proven themselves.
Abstract
Judicial activism introduced CSO's and fueled their spread. Judges viewed CSO's as expanding their range of community sentencing options and as a disposition which could be implemented as ordered. The Ministry of Correctional Services' (MCS) policy of privatization created a group (CSO coordinators and their employing private organizations) whose ideology and self-interest motivated the mobilization of parties to support CSO's. The institutionalization of the CSO program within MCS created bureaucratic careers based in the expansion of the CSO program. Although the primary justification for CSO's was reduction in the jail population, this did not occur. Politicians valued CSO's, however, because they were popular with the public and generated favorable publicity. Overall, the spread of CSO's was due to supporters' moral convictions and self-interest rather than CSO's achievement of intended effects. 36 references.