General Article Changes to community sentences

Topic Selected: Crime and Justice
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New plans for community sentences propose four days of hard manual labour, improving public areas by clearing up litter, cleaning graffiti and maintaining parks and other green spaces. The fifth day will be spent looking for full-time employment.
Previously, community payback programmes could be spread out over 12 months, with some offenders working for a minimum of just six hours per week.
The new, more intensive scheme will also be imposed on offenders within seven days of sentencing, instead of the two weeks it currently takes following a court appearance.
About 100,000 individuals are sentenced to community payback each year across England and Wales, with over 8.8 million hours of unpaid work completed last year.
24 August 2011

  • The above information is reprinted with kind permission from the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion, based on information provided by the Ministry of Justice. Visit www.cesi.org.uk for more information.

© Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion

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