Community Service as Punishment

When some persons or a group performs an act which benefits the entire community then it can be labelled as community service. Community service is an integral part of any society. All societies have community service in some form or other. Be it in the form of giving food to needy, contributing in Swatch Bharat Abhiyan, cleanliness drive in communities, teaching, empowering people, free service in religious places, etc.  Communities and citizens have embraced these voluntary community services in their lives but the concept of community service as a punishment is confined to service in religious places in some communities only in India. Baker has defined the community service as a punishment as”Action by the offender to make good the loss suffered by the victim.”

 Community service as a punishment is also sometimes referred to as alternate sentencing or non custodial sentence, is a collective measure. The concept behind it is that the victims of crime only played a small part in the whole process and their loss was only compensated by punishing the other person or only partly in monetary terms and it is justified that the role of the victim needs to be improved as an individual or as a member of the larger community. This is where the community service or making good of loss to the victim plays a very big part.  The concept was first practiced in 1966 in USA against female traffic offenders but it was only in 1970 that UK enacted legislation for the first time, which gave courts special powers to order community service as a sentencing sanction and not as a condition of probation. Later on a number of European countries followed the example.

If community service is to be awarded as a punishment by the courts then it will need legislation and empowering courts toward awarding such a punishment depending on the seriousness of the crime. It also needs to be understood that only certain or few crimes can only be given this punishment and most others will have to be dealt with the normal course of judicial process. Examples could be traffic offenses like driving in wrong lane, traffic light jumping, slapping, minor assault cases,  brawl, offensive or derogatory comments, objectionable  posts on social media, cheating, cheque bounce, etc. Similarly the punishments awarded could be, removing graffiti from the walls, removing posters, working two hours per day for a month on managing traffic during peak hour, house arrest, curfew, wearing an electronic tag, guarding a property, working in community kitchens, cleaning of drains for a week, written apology or publishing in two newspapers, cleaning wasteland, stopped from going to certain places and doing certain activities, etc.

The order from the court to be very specific about the type of offense and nature and extent of damage done to the community or individual and the service required to be performed which will directly repair the damages inflicted by the crime. The order has to be specific as to where it is to be performed and the person or persons responsible to ensure that the punishment has been completed failing which the only other alternative will be a sentence in jail.