ABSTRACT

Community Service1 (CS) involves doing work for the benefit of the community as a punishment for an offence. It is a relatively inexpensive sanction for crimes of medium seriousness that commands wide levels of public support in most countries (Tonry 1998). It is extensively established across Europe: the probation service implements or organises CS, in one form or another, in all but one of the 33 European jurisdictions covered by van Kalmthout and Durnescu (2008).