ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Community Service (CS) has always tried to incorporate principles of punishment, rehabilitation, reparation and reintegration. Sometimes the objectives have worked in harmony, but there have also been tensions. In England and Wales, the statutory basis for CS is the requirement to undertake unpaid work as all or part of a community order or a suspended sentence order. In practice, community service has always had to try to reconcile tensions among competing objectives. The probation order would not, at least at that time, have been understood or presented in that way – it was instead of punishment. Reintegration is closely associated with both rehabilitation and reparation, though conceptually distinct. Reparation through community service almost never takes the form of work with direct benefit to victims. The chapter focuses on the way in which the various purposes of CS may find themselves in tension.
