Community Service

History

The idea of community service originated in England in the late 1960s. In 1972 Parliament granted courts the authority to order convicted offenders to perform such work. Within two years the United States and Canada began to introduce similar programs. During this same period, in America a push toward “diversion,” the expeditious transfer of someone out of, or away from, the traditional criminal justice system, was under way, and this sparked a community corrections movement. There were notable distinctions earmarking this era of penal reform. No longer focused on justice, this wave of diversion rhetoric called for offender rehabilitation far from the confines of penal institutions and squarely within the environs of society. The goal was to move people out of the criminal justice system (divert them), in order to address, and solve or cure, the real problems underlying or causing criminality. Community-based treatment programs become characteristic of this movement. In 1967 the President's Crime Commission endorsed this endeavor and throughout the following decade more than 1,000 diversion programs were created in the United States.

Supporters of this movement are concerned with what they see as the inability of incarceration to cure an offender, and this worry is coupled with a growing concern regarding the profound alienation, from family, friends, work, and the whole of society, brought about by prison or jail sentences. Not only is incapacitation ineffective, they believe that it is harmful, with deleterious effects all its own. There is a growing sense that defining those found guilty as “criminals,” as incarceration unavoidably does, is detrimental and has long-term consequences. This criminological theory, known as “labeling,” argues that once individuals see themselves as criminals they will commit crime. Self-perception and subsequent behavior are shaped by the labels imposed on us. Reservations about prison, particularly for first-time or juvenile offenders (who are considered less criminal, and therefore more easily rehabilitated) prevail, and efforts to create alternative sanctions have expanded.

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