COMMUNITY SENTENCING

A community sentence is simply a sentence that is served whilst the offender still lives in the community – in the majority of cases at their own home.

Implementation of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 has meant wide-ranging changes to sentencing from 4th April 2005. Gone are the former Community Rehabilitation (Probation) Orders and Community Punishment (Service) Orders, to be replaced with one single Community Order.

Any breach of an Order imposed by the courts will result in the individual being prosecuted, and returned to court for resentence. All offenders under probation supervision are regularly risk assessed.

COMMUNITY ORDER

The Community Order is a court imposed sentence that replaces all previous community orders, and can last for a maximum of 3 years. Its benefits are that it can be tailored to each individual offender, and must include at least one of the following twelve requirements:

Unpaid Work (the former community service)
Specified Activity (which could include attendance at classes to improve literacy and/or numeracy)
Programme (each programme is offence based, and nationally accredited)
Prohibited Activity
Exclusion (restricting the activity or behaviour of the offender)
Curfew (commonly known as tagging)
Residence (requiring the offender to live at a probation hostel)
Mental Health Treatment
Drug Rehabilitation
Alcohol Treatment
Supervision (similar to the former Probation Order)
Attendance Centre (for under 25s only)

Offences committed prior to 4th April 2005 are sentenced under the old legislation. Offences committed on or after that date are subject to the new legislation. This means for example that an offender may still receive a Community Punishment Order for an offence committed in 2004, but could also receive a Community Order with a requirement to attend a Domestic Violence Programme for an offence carried out in June 2005.

COMMUNITY REHABILITATION ORDER

A Community Rehabilitation Order is a sentence of the court than can last from 6 months to 3 years. It is only available for offences committed prior to 4th April 2005. The supervision of the offender is managed by a probation officer who is responsible for the planning, co-ordination and delivery of the customised supervision programme. This includes getting offenders to look at the reasons for their offending and motivating them to change. The Order also focusses on getting offenders to accept responsibility for their actions and encourages discipline and awareness of the impact of their actions on others. The supervision programme is demanding and an offender has to comply with all aspects of it. Should an offender fail to do so, he or she will be returned to court for re-sentence.

COMMUNITY PUNISHMENT ORDER

A Community Punishment Order is a sentence of the court that requires offenders to perform demanding, unpaid work for the benefit of the community of 40 to 240 hours duration. Previously known as Community Service, it is only available for offences committed prior to 4th April 2005.
Typical Community Punishment projects range from decorating, fencing, gardening, landscaping and building work, to charity and conservation work. An individual project can save a community as much as £20,000, and often motivate an offender to seek work of similar nature on completion of the Order. All work is carefully supervised by probation staff to ensure that work is of a consistently high standard.

A community service officer oversees supervision of the offender throughout the Order, which will involve keeping to disciplined requirements while undertaking socially useful work. Many offenders acquire new skills during their sentence, thereby increasing their employability once the Order is complete. Again, should an offender fail to comply with the requirements of the Order, they can be returned to court for re-sentence.

COMMUNITY PUNISHMENT AND REHABILITATION ORDER

In some instances, an offence may be sufficiently serious for the court to make a Community Punishment and Rehabilitation Order, which combines the elements of both Community Punishment and Community Rehabilitation. Again, this is only available for offences committed prior to 4th April 2005.

Follow this link to view the Community Order Flowchart.