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Punishment Without Walls - Community Service Sentences in New York City

NCJ Number
102920
Author(s)
D C McDonald
Date Published
1986
Length
294 pages
Annotation
The book examines the impact of a community service sentencing program for chronic property offenders introduced by the Vera Institute into three New York City courts between 1979 and 1981.
Abstract
The author describes the early development of the Vera Institute Community Service Sentencing Project in the Bronx County Court and its expansion into the lower courts County Court and its expansion into the lower courts of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Among the topics discussed are the kinds of unpaid service performed by offenders, the active role the staff plays in plea negotiation, and methods used by project managers and courts to enforce sanctions. The book describes assumptions and methods used to determine how participants would have been sentenced in the absence of the community service project and then explains why the boroughs differed in their use of the sanction. It notes that the Bronx and Brooklyn projects did poorly initially, but revised procedures to net jailbound offenders being established in the more successful Manhattan program turned the projects around. Interviews with 81 persons sentenced under the program provide evaluative data. These individuals saw community service as fair simply because it was not jail, but they did not see it as a means of making restitution. An assessment of the projects' impact notes that community service exercises the same deterrent and rehabilitative effects on offenders as does a jail sentence, in that 40 to 50 percent of those sampled recidivated within 6 months. The book weighs the financial and social costs of a community service order against its benefits, concluding that it is a worthwhile addition to the repertoire of punishments. A description of the statistical methods used is appended. Tables, references, and an index.

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