Any attempt to assess the impact of community service over the last 20 years is imprecise owing to the ambiguous nature of community service, which leaves its use and value open to a variety of readings. This article proposes to locate the use of community service within an overall social policy context of increased bureaucratic control and discipline, of both offenders and staff. Community service has developed as a multi-faceted penal measure and has remained an ambiguous disposal; an alternative and yet not an alternative to custody. it has functioned as an accompaniment to custody. The article's rather gloomy view of community service should not detract from the positive experience that community service can provide nor decry the effort of community service staff in the probation service. However, the government has allowed sentencers to use community service in a haphazard way, has failed to deal with the problem of prison overcrowding, has made no innovative steps toward reducing the number of people sent to prison each year, and appears to still be obsessed with punishment. Figures, references