Community work instead of serving time in jail

An article on the BBC website published in February says that Scottish low- level offenders will do manual work. A new law has come into force giving judges the option to impose a Community Payback Order on petty criminals as an alternative to jail terms of less than three months. Offenders can be ordered to do manual work such as removing graffiti, clearing wastelands or repairing churches and schools while undertaking treatments to address the reasons of their crimes (e.g. drug abuse or alcohol drinking). The aim of the measure is to tackle the high rates of reoffending, for short sentences do not seem to be a deterrent for minor criminals as they consider it a lighter sanction than a community one. Although some politicians considered the law a recipe for disaster claiming that serious criminals could also avoid jail and become a bigger danger to society, many others are in favour of the law as they say that ‘evidence shows that getting offenders out doing some manual work works far better than short-term prison sentences.’ I wonder if a programme like this would work in Argentina. Perhaps making minor criminals do manual work to pay back to the community for their offences would be a better option than sending them to prison where they receive a thorough education in crime, cost money to the community and go out to commit more serious crimes causing even more damage to society.

Storm