Community Service / Community Payback

[spen666]

You may recall a few years ago, the government made a big deal about making this tougher and more visible. Offenders wearing orange boilersuits or the like so they were visible when doing the days / hours imposed by the courts.
With the increasing reluctance of courts to send offenders ( lower level offences) to prison, you would have thought more people were getting such sentences.

I haven't seen anyone doing such work for a very long time.

Is it still a thing?

 

[AndyRM]

Probably not.

For a whole host of easily understandable reasons.

 

[Ian H]

I saw a large group working in a churchyard at the weekend.

 

[spen666]

I saw a large group working in a churchyard at the weekend.

Good to hear. I've not seen them for ages and not heard it mentioned in the news for a long long time

 

[icowden]

You may recall a few years ago, the government made a big deal about making this tougher and more visible. Offenders wearing orange boilersuits or the like so they were visible when doing the days / hours imposed by the courts.
With the increasing reluctance of courts to send offenders ( lower level offences) to prison, you would have thought more people were getting such sentences.

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/122239/html

I found this which demonstrates that community sentences have declined by 54% between 2012 and 2022. Fines have increased. The other notable change illustrates the collapse of the justice system - you have a big reduction in sentencing in 2020 due to Covid, but numbers don't recover, which I believe correlates to the reduction in funding, reduction in court sittings and the difficulties finding criminal barristers who no longer get paid enough to want to do the job.

But yes, the Tory line was that community service wasn't enough - it needed to be humiliating as well. Forget about rehabilitation and giving people a sense of self-worth, addressing mental health and addiction issues. Just make it really humiliating so that people fail.

 

[Psamathe]

Community Payback is still going though I have no idea about what those doing it have to wear. One nearby Parish Council started getting fed-up with having to pay to maintain churchyard (community couldn't understand why church wouldn't pay to maintain their own premises and expected everybody else to pay for them). So Parish Council investigated and now every two weeks a Community Payback team arrive and cut grass, hedges, strim, etc. Van they use has "Community Payback" written large down the side. When I've cycled past they actually use 2 vans, one unlabelled as it's for people so has windows down each side, other a gear van that has the "Community Payback" down the side.

Ian

 

[Mr Celine]

Still a common sentence in the court pages of the local rag.
I can't say I've ever noticed a chain gang but the orange boiler suit ritual humiliation was never a thing up here.

Either that or they all do their community service on the railway.

 

[icowden]

I can't say I've ever noticed a chain gang but the orange boiler suit ritual humiliation was never a thing up here.

I don't think it was ever a thing in the UK. Justice in the UK is based on both punishment and rehabilitation, not just punishment. For that we can look to the USA who have really demonstrated just how badly punitive justice works. The push here is towards rehabilitation and restorative justice. It's cheaper for a start and it works much better.

Analysis by the Restorative Justice Council and Victim Support demonstrated that providing restorative justice in 70,000 cases involving adult offenders would deliver £185 million in cashable cost savings to the criminal justice system over two years, through reductions in reoffending alone. The report is available here.

An independent expert analysis of the economic benefits of restorative justice, carried out by Matrix, found that diverting young offenders from community orders to a pre-court restorative justice conferencing scheme would produce a life time saving to society of almost £275 million (£7,050 per offender). The cost of implementing the scheme would be paid back in the first year and during the course of two parliaments society would benefit by over £1 billion. The report is available here.

A business case for the use of restorative justice in policing has been developed by Garry Shewan, National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on restorative justice. It concludes that restorative justice can help to deliver efficiency savings. It is available here.

Essentially you don't stop people offending by punishing them. If anything you put them in an environment where they can learn how to offend more efficiently. What many offenders need is help. They often have limited skills, failed at school and/or have mental health or addiction problems. There are of course a small number of criminals who are fully a danger to society with no possibility of redemption or rehabilitation.

 

[AndyRM]

I don't think it was ever a thing in the UK. Justice in the UK is based on both punishment and rehabilitation, not just punishment. For that we can look to the USA who have really demonstrated just how badly punitive justice works. The push here is towards rehabilitation and restorative justice. It's cheaper for a start and it works much better.


Essentially you don't stop people offending by punishing them. If anything you put them in an environment where they can learn how to offend more efficiently. What many offenders need is help. They often have limited skills, failed at school and/or have mental health or addiction problems. There are of course a small number of criminals who are fully a danger to society with no possibility of redemption or rehabilitation.

Norway leads the way when it comes to prison systems I think. Their model is actually based on rehabilitation rather than attempted humiliation

 

[dutchguylivingintheuk]

I don't think it was ever a thing in the UK. Justice in the UK is based on both punishment and rehabilitation, not just punishment. For that we can look to the USA who have really demonstrated just how badly punitive justice works.

Really depends on who you ask, there is research showing punitive justice works just great and also more then enough showing quite the opposite. But America's problems are far to complicated to use it as an example to say ''punitive justice does not work'' Also punishment is not only for the offender but also for the victims and to protect society as a whole.

The push here is towards rehabilitation and restorative justice. It's cheaper for a start and it works much better.

Locking someone up is indeed expensive but during this persons time, he can't commit any crimes, if rehabilitation really works better depends on the type of crime and underlying cause. I would for example probably really work well for those American teens who grew up in a ghetto and know no better because not joining an gang makes them a target, education and a safer place to live will most likely put them in a better position.

On the other end of the spectrum, those scooter/ebike mobs who went on a Jew hunt in Amsterdam a few weeks back have gotten al chances and if you really want to to change their behavior you need harder not softer punishment.

Essentially you don't stop people offending by punishing them. If anything you put them in an environment where they can learn how to offend more efficiently. What many offenders need is help. They often have limited skills, failed at school and/or have mental health or addiction problems. There are of course a small number of criminals who are fully a danger to society with no possibility of redemption or rehabilitation.

Whilst i agree it's certain a factor a generalization like this is also partly why we ended up with this mess in Europe in the first place, we are to quick to make the offender the victim. And tougher punishments are still a joke to some criminals especially compared to the punishments they get in the country their nationality and or decent.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

a Jew hunt in Amsterdam

🤣

 

[All uphill]

"Locking someone up is indeed expensive but during this persons time, he can't commit any crimes"

Really?

So the safest place to be is in a prison - completely crime free areas?

 

[icowden]

Really depends on who you ask, there is research showing punitive justice works just great and also more then enough showing quite the opposite.

I've never seen any that suggests punitive justice works well. Feel free to link to some.

 

[dutchguylivingintheuk]

🤣

Funny? something about true colors and such

"Locking someone up is indeed expensive but during this persons time, he can't commit any crimes"

Really?

So the safest place to be is in a prison - completely crime free areas?

You could have read my full post and realise what i intended to say but ok point taken, what i meant to say that person can't commit any crimes outside of prison. (not in person at least)

I've never seen any that suggests punitive justice works well. Feel free to link to some.

You can also just open your eyes but if you look at this crime statistics comparison (between the Uk and US) https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime/table
We see the US is higher it just about everything except for the ''total crimes per 1000'' the UK ranks 4th, the US 22nd. Rape crime, the Uk is 2 places higher then the US, Murders the UK is 18% higher then the US, Assualt victims, 2.8% for the uk VS 1.2% in the US. However the perception of saferty is high and so is the trust in the efficentcy off the police.
Now i am not fooled by statistics, this particular page has 5 pages to pick and mix and like i said before it's just as easy to claim punitive justice doesn't work, so let me give an other example, do you think Kim young Un (might have written it wrong) the feared leader of North Korea ever has to worry about locking his car? in North Korea? if we forget about the guards most likely guarding his car. If punitive justice wouldn't work why does a feared person has a preventive effect?
Because it does work, but like everything at some point you also get the effect of demising returns, which we for example see in the ghetto's. But in genera; the perception of safety in the US is better despite you believing their punitive system is not working. (oh and yes there are also more then enough articles covering the working of punitive punishment as a system. )

 

[icowden]

You can also just open your eyes but if you look at this crime statistics comparison (between the Uk and US) https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime/table

Those are not all crime statistics. Those are statistics solely based on perception of crime based on a survey.
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime/table

We see the US is higher it just about everything except for the ''total crimes per 1000'' the UK ranks 4th, the US 22nd. Rape crime, the Uk is 2 places higher then the US, Murders the UK is 18% higher then the US, Assualt victims, 2.8% for the uk VS 1.2% in the US. However the perception of saferty is high and so is the trust in the efficentcy off the police.

Those last two are entirely subjective and based on opinion again. If capital punishment and severe sentencing works, why is their murder rate so much higher than ours (669 times higher) ? Why is their violent crime 4x higher? Their violent crime murder rate 18 times higher?

Now i am not fooled by statistics, this particular page has 5 pages to pick and mix and like i said before it's just as easy to claim punitive justice doesn't work, so let me give an other example, do you think Kim young Un (might have written it wrong) the feared leader of North Korea ever has to worry about locking his car? in North Korea? if we forget about the guards most likely guarding his car. If punitive justice wouldn't work why does a feared person has a preventive effect?

I'm not sure that you can use a totalitarian police state as a demonstration that punitive justice works. Obviously if you remove all freedom, it works.

Because it does work, but like everything at some point you also get the effect of demising returns, which we for example see in the ghetto's. But in genera; the perception of safety in the US is better despite you believing their punitive system is not working. (oh and yes there are also more then enough articles covering the working of punitive punishment as a system. )

I don't believe it. It can be proven by comparing crime and homicide rates.