to think that community service should not be about humiliation?

To correct the zombie op.
It IS everyone's business who is a convict and what their punishment is. That's why hearings are in open court.

YES!

The point of community’s service is not really punishment. It to give the offender the opportunity to make reparation for the benefit of the community. This way, the offender can realise that what they did was wrong, But they have done something good to address it, and, will hopefully be able to draw a line under the episode and move on with their life.
making them stand out in public is humiliating, and will label them amongst their own community.
If they did choose to reoffend, or breach a community order, the court could then decide that a prison sentence would be a more appropriate action.

Is this zombie thread - at 14 fucking years - a record of some sort ?

Yeah, I don't think unpaid work itself is bad, I just think the humiliating aspect is unfair.

Criminals are created by societal issues, how about we do socioeconomic cleansing of the working class, that would eliminate 98% of crime. Clearly that's inhuman and stupid.

We can also assume that removing the jackets won't cause any problems - so it makes sense to do that, I understand for surveillance reasons it is handy to make them easy to spot, but do you know how many people have abandoned community sentences on sight in last 10 years? 0.

Do you not think that's because UK's rehabilitation is shit? In Halden, reoffending rate is 25% over the rest of a criminals life ( much better than UK)

stfu

It’s not really about humiliation tbh. A relative of mine had to do it and they found it very rewarding.

Your just wrong too,

Purposes of punishment are

Protection (doesn't fall under reoffending)

Retribution (doesn't fall under reoffending)

Rehab

Deterrence

Statistically, longer sentences lower reoffending rates, so that's all you can go off lol, don't be silly

Yeah but these people don't wear hi-vis jackets when they do it.

I'm not against the fluorescence, but rather the label.

Also, it does more harm than good lol, YOs have a 77% reoffending rate for services 6 months or less. Do you not think that's because the first sentence creates ruptures between them and society and that leads them to having no choice but to commit crimes?

Saying "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime" is so obnoxious, it is not their choice to do the crime but the societal effects that cause them to do this.

If your rich ah instead grew up with one mum, a dad in jail, a terrible school, addicts for friends and alcohol as a hobby, you would do the crime.

I absolutely agree.

Clearly the mums on this thread have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in an environment where crime is normal and almost unavoidable. Its their socioeconomic class and relationship with the government (which treats the poor like shit) which leads to these people committing crimes, certainly not them being "scumbags".

Also if people think the humiliation aspect "deters" them from re-offending, they are idiots. This labelling as a criminal to be humiliated almost seals their fate as someone who hates the criminal justice system, and rest of society - that is why there is such a high reoffending rate for those who take part in community service.

There was also an idiot who said that they deserved to have their human rights infringed - comm. service is a punishment for things like graffiti or pissing in a bush, these are not things that should have someone be humiliated for hours every week for a year.

It is also the way you have all reacted to people doing "community payback" that shows, precisely, the reason this humiliation is truly awful. You all called these people scumbags and twats, how does that make them feel about the public? These people, after being humiliated, know that the public hate them and this feeling becomes mutual, making their reoffending almost certain.

Have some compassion and be more aware that not everyone is as privileged as you.

to be fair i look awful in orange...

they did something wrong

they get punished

justice is seen to be working flourecently!

if you can't do the time in an orange jacket, dont do the crime

jeez, i'm pretty liberal but c'mon 'lets not hurt the feelings of petty criminals becuase they wear an orange jacket' ....really?

But to return to the OP....

YABU - unless you can show that this causes more harm than good.

Community Payback is probably a better name as many people provide service to their community without having committed offences.

That this WHOLE area is insufficiently evidence based

To return to the original question....!!!!..

YABU to transfer your own perception that the jackets worn are for the purpose of humiliating the offenders.

Once you get past this particular block - because I really do not believe this is about humiliation, it's about practical reasons, and also defining what the individuals are there for - then really, I can't see what the issue is.

If people wearing the jackets reduces offending, then great, that's an important aim. If it makes no difference to offending rates, but serves the purpose of getting purposeful jobs done in the community, and exposing the offenders to productive work situations, and raising public awareness of this, then great, that's important too.

There is certainly no evidence that wearing the jackets will increase offending - so what's the problem?

No, the aims are basically like KPI's - you need to read it like a statement of business goals.

We want to do X.

We will do this by doing Y which is measured by Z, A which is measured by B etc.

Punishment and maintaining confidence are tools in reducing offending.

In your example the judgement is that if the murdered was paroled after 10 years, this would not be seen as sufficient punishment, so it would undermine trust in the system increasing the risk of people going outside the system to inflict punishment themselves and so increasing offending as we move back to a self-dispensed system of feuding.

I'm not arguing that the other aims are unimportant - but they all contribute to the main aim.

What is the point of massive public support for a system that increases offending?

What is the point of punishment that increases the number of victims?

The only one that can stand on it's own is reducing offending, and that is the terms in which we should be conducting the debate.

It may be splitting hairs, but the aims don't state: 'to reduce offending through the other aims'. They are clearly stated as separate aims.

How about a murderer who reaches his parole date after 20 years, is judged to no longer be a risk to the public, and there is judged to be no risk of crimes of recrimination? Now, what if the same situation had been true after 10 years? Why isn't the criminal released then, thereby saving public funds? If there is no longer a risk of reoffending, or other crimes being committed as a reaction to it?

The reason is precisely because there are other elements to the criminal justice system, such as punishement, and maintaining public confidence.

The other aims are there to support the main one which is to reduce offending. Without public confidence that sanctions are carried out with fairness you would see a rise in vigilantism and a loss of support for the system, leading to more crime over all.

What is the POINT of "public confidence that sanctions are carried out with fairness" otherwise?

The 'mission statement' of the CJS is "The purpose of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) is to deliver justice for all, by convicting and punishing the guilty and helping them to stop offending, while protecting the innocent."

The other aims are steps to that. But we are splitting hairs really.

I think that if there was a case where a decision needed to be made between reducing offending and justice being seen to be done, we would both go for reducing offending, while in practice justice being seen to be done reduces offending.

Read the aims of the criminal justice system. Reducing crime is one of them. There are others, including the need for public confidence that sanctions are carried out with fairness.

Violethill - No - the only purpose of the Justice system is to reduce offending. There are two reasons for giving murderers who are not likely to offend long sentences:-

a) It is a detterent to others who might otherwise commit those offences.
b) It asserts the role of the state in administering punishment, reducing the risk of further offences being committed in revenge for the initial offence, even if there would be no risk of this in a particular instance.