Community Payback and you (From Bucks Free Press)

Community Payback and you

9:31pm Tuesday 16th February 2010

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My first thought was: ‘Please don’t make me have to think of ways to punish noisy neighbours or burglars.’ My second thought was, ‘Oh, hell. What are other people going to suggest for offenders?’

It’s not as bad as it seems. We’re talking about crimes in the neighbourhood, as far as I can tall. Of course some might have graffiti creators locked up. Other might want to have car thieves whipped. I sense there’s a swathe of British society which would still recommend capital punishment for some offences.

And then more than this. How can we, the humble public decide? We can barely discipline our own children. We apparently need to be told what to eat, when and how to exercise, when not to take our car out (i.e. in the snow) and how to avoid debt. All very basic stuff.

It’s been a struggle finding any detailed information about this initiative. All we’re told by the slightly Northern, female prison-warden type voice on the ad is, ‘Justice seen, justice done’.

Are we deemed able enough to decide how offenders’ free hard labour puts back into the community but not responsible enough to know what crimes are punished this way?

Offenders are to wear bright orange jackets marked 'Community Payback' while they're working. ‘The jackets mean you can see that they're paying back for their crimes.’ Ways an offender can pay back include:
• removing graffiti

• picking up litter

• repairing and decorating community centres

• clearing undergrowth from paths and other public areas

• working on environmental projects

We’re told that the safety of the public comes first and there are very strict criteria the offenders have to fulfil before they’re let loose in the community. Like what?

There are still two things which aren’t clear to me. What criteria are used to ensure the safety of the public? And what crimes will be punished by the community payback scheme? Why so little information?

Are we deemed able enough to decide how offenders’ free hard labour puts back into the community but not responsible enough to know what crimes are punished this way? I’m sceptical about the whole endeavour. We are also allowed to know that the public’s safety is paramount but not how this will be enforced.

By the way, has anyone asked ex- offenders what sort of punishment would work? I have a feeling they might enlighten us all.

Would a resident causing noise every night without a second thought for their neighbours feel punished by clearing litter, renovating a community centre or clearing thick undergrowth? I don’t know. So how would I select a punitive activity for one?

The sketchy information the public is being offered makes me dubious. I think we’re being made to think we have powers and a say in things. Delve any deeper into the initiative and the information dries up.

Frankly I resent this. It’s artificial. Someone has decided that if they make us, the public, think we have some say in matters, we will be assuaged and forget the monumental issues facing society and the country.

As I’ve stated before, when a citizen breaks the law or social code, surely they are aware of this at the time. Since I’m in honest mode, I’ll raise my hand and say I‘ve previously taken an item from a hotel room. Theft. I’m a criminal too. So, on goes the hi-vis jacket and armband and down to paint the community centre.

Prison doesn’t work, I’m not sure community payback will be any more successful though I agree with the thinking behind it.

There’s a great scene in To Catch a Thief where Cary Grant is defining the problems of being a former cat burglar. Talking to the insurance chap he states that whenever some jewellery goes missing, the whole town shouts, ‘John Robie – The Cat!’ When the insurance chap fiddles his expenses or nicks a towel from a hotel room, he has no such problem. Invisible crimes get invisible punishments.

Again, it’s the obvious culprits (poorer, more deprived individuals who haven’t used the education system to the full and don’t know their Latin conjugations) who will be serving their sentence in full view of society.

Those lovely suited chaps and gals who manipulate figures on their tax returns will still remain anonymous. Even a jail sentence is unseen – no public humiliation for them. Yet their crimes are much more far-reaching than noisy youths hanging around.

There’s no getting away from the fact that punishment falls broadly into two categories: deprivation of physical hardship. I think punishment is just a sticking plaster anyway. It doesn’t tackle the deep and sometimes incomprehensible reasons for why some people err and others don’t.

And I’m not prepared to even consider the idea that ‘Some people are just bad’. That’s a get out, a lazy way of saying there’s nothing we can do. Too easy, too convenient and meaningless.

Prison doesn’t work, I’m not sure community payback will be any more successful though I agree with the thinking behind it.

If it does work, I want to hear about it. Though now I’m thinking that if free hard work is a punishment for crime in the neighbourhood (will it just be anti-social behaviour-type misdemeanors?) then my own free hard work is even more baffling.

Although perhaps not. Just desserts for my hotel shower caps and soaps and oh, that time in M&S when I bought a two-pack of two vests and there were actually three inside and I said nothing. Or those times I’ve been given too much change. The list is endless and so is my punishment I fear.

Amersham can’t hope to benefit much from this service: we have a fairly low crime rate and generally well-behaved citizens. So will it be that places with higher anti-social crime rates will begin looking rather smarter and more attractive while bonnie Bucks gets increasingly dilapidated?

Perhaps then we can borrow offenders from other areas whose towns and surrounding areas have been greatly improved? Would there be an exchange of labour from one borough to another? Some might have a surplus while others have a shortage.

Meanwhile I want information about this scheme to be accessible. We’re been offered tidbits and I want the whole story to chew over and consider. Then maybe I can make an informed decision.