Criminals on community sentences will be made to work five day weeks under proposals announced today.
Unemployed offenders will have to work at least 28 hours a week and spend a day job-seeking under the community payback programme. It is part of sentencing reforms aimed at tackling the causes of crime and reducing re-offending rates.
Prisons minister Crispin Blunt said: “If you are unemployed and on Community Payback you shouldn’t be sitting idle at home watching daytime television or hanging about with your mates on a street corner, you should be out paying back to your community through hard, honest work.
“The public want to see offenders giving something back to their communities, but they are rightly not satisfied with seeing only a handful of hours a week dished out.
“Decent, law-abiding people can work a full five day week and so should offenders.”
Previously community work sentences have been spread out over 12 months, with some criminals doing just six hours a week.
The government says the new regime will sit alongside plans for more ‘working prisons’ for offenders serving custodial sentences.
Inmates at Strangeways are already employed for up to 40 hours a week, and governor Richard Vince says for many it is their first experience of work.
He said: “This opportunity encourages a sense of responsibility and pride amongst prisoners, and for some, doing well at work gives them a sense of achievement that they’ve not experienced before.
“This is hugely beneficial in helping prisoners gain employment and contribute positively upon release.”
HMP Manchester has a laundry, and printing and textile workshops, and was held up as an example by Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke when he first announced moves to get prisoners working last year.
The payback plans launched this week will see those given a community sentence subject to a similar regime – including manual labour, clearing up public spaces, cleaning graffiti or maintaining parks four days a week, and a fifth day job-seeking.
Some 100,000 people given community payback sentences in England and Wales each year.
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Good this has been a long time coming.
Why is this only being applied to unemployed offenders on 'community payback'? This should be rolled out to unemployed people across the board after being unemployed for 3 months. 3 months is more than sufficient time to find another job.
Cracking idea. Benefits both the community & the offenders. Maybe they could help build new prisons?
Sounds like another excuse to use community sentencing instead of sending criminals to jail. What will actually need to happen for this government to realise that more prisons need to be built, not lighter sentencing and even earlier release tariffs.
God its been like platting fog all these years? People have wanted prisoners to work for their stay in prison ,but theve been ignored by politicians etc.Only when we have a riot that affects commerce that they sit up and listen.......................
The current system we have in place for community payback doesn't work and the courts don't give these criminals enough of a sentence. I would make every criminal in this country work for the community for at least 6 months doing a full 7 hour day 4 days per week. This will make them think twice before they commit any kind of crime. The punishment must fit the crime.
The riots kicked off across the country simply because they thought they would get away with it with a fine and a slap on the wrist. How wrong were they, they all got given a prison sentence, hence the reason the riots didn't escalate on future nights.
We probably won't have any more riots now because of the prison sentences that have been given out by the courts.
6 months community payback - 4 days per week 7 hours per day. And it must be tough work to make it pay. This is the only way these idiots will listen.
I remember my days doing community service/payback/whatever. We had a right old larf. We all wore our orange jackets, which are really just the same high vis' vests that any road crew wear, so none of us were remotely 'ashamed' - not that we would have been anyway. I mean, they don't actually say anything on the back - maybe a faded out Community Payback on some of them, but mostly they are just old high vis vests.
As it happens, I made some of my best frtiends doing 'CS' between Salford and Nelson, Lancs, guys who I am still regularly in touch with even now, almost three years after I finished. Every Saturday me and the lads would talk about our hangovers while strimming some grass, tidying up some cemetery or running a charity car wash by the road side. Our mates/mams/girlfriends/boyfriends would stop by to say hello sometimes. The probation staff were generally and alright bunch, not the kind of little Nazi's Zingo or Jon, a bus driver would like to imagine them to be. Decent set when all said and done.
The one thing I truly hated about it, and which EVERYBODY really hated about it, was that we could only do six hours a week. Most people, especially those not working, wanted, begged, pleaded to do it everyday so they could get their lives back. You see guys; regarding community service, you don't get sentenced to a year or six months - you get sentenced to a certain number of hours. If you are very good, turn up on time and don't make trouble you might be lucky enough to get a rare, five day a week placement at a charity shop or some such. That means you are done with it in a couple of weeks and it is behind you. The real suffering is when it takes you two years or more, as with me.
I was unlucky, I was handed 300 hours, the maximum allowed and I worked so I could only do six hours per week. So, it took me over a few years to finish because I got fed up and left the country for a while to meet my girlfriend overseas.
When I came back, unlike Asil Nadir, I was arrested at Manchester airport with 40 hours outstanding. Again unlike Asil Nadir who is charged with stealing £43 MILLION from workers pension funds, I wasn't given legal aid or a nice house to live in while I awaited a trial. I just got slammed into a van, into a cell, and then into court after a nine hour flight. The judge gave me another 40 hours and, even though I wasn't working this time, they would still not give me five days a week because this is really a reward.
So, good luck with this. For all the lads and girls, doing CS up and down the country, I hope this goes through. There is nothing worse than seeing your mates say outside the pub on a summer day while you are on your way to CS! I know a lot of posters here will be gnashing their teeth about now but, guys, no word of a lie. That is my story and that is the truth from the perspective of a former convicted and sentenced criminal. Lets have five day a week CS so we can all get on with our lives :))))
What an excellent idea.
I've just seen a news report that Jacqui Smith used prisoners, who were supposed to be doing community work, to paint her house, even though they're not supposed to work inside private houses. She made a donation to a charity although I bet it was less than paying for a professional decorator, and claims she didn't know of the restrictions. Even though she was an abject failure both as a Home Secretary and a politician, and I don't doubt her competence, I do doubt her honesty.
Will we see future inmates trimming wisteria, clearing moats and building duck houses?
Sounds like an opportunistic attempt by the state to get some cheap labour. As cuts in public spending start to bite, the people made redundant can be replaced with prisoners, forcing up unemployment, but keeping politicians in a stable position.
Of course, the economically illiterate thickos will lap it up without stopping for a moment to think it through.
Work gangs ... work.