Community orders, sometimes referred to as community sentences, are imposed in criminal proceedings throughout England & Wales and they allow judges or magistrates to tailor a sentence to meet the needs or circumstances of the offender.
The intention is that the sentence is served in the community under the supervision of the Probation Service and is intended as a punishment.
Community Service Orders restrict an offender’s movements or activity, as well as encouraging attendence at activities or treatment-based interventions intended to assist in rehabilitating an offender of helping them to come to terms with the consequences of their actions.
Judges or Magistrates can impose different types of Community Orders and they can impose conditions to those Orders.
Conditions are ‘requirements’ on the order to enable the offender to address their offending behaviour. There are twelve different types of Conditions that the courts can attach to a Community Order.
However; it is very unlikely that any single offender would be bound by all of the available Conditions on their Community Order. Less serious offences would generally carry only one or two whereas a more serious offence may have three or more of the Conditions attached to the Community Order.
The various trypes of Conditions that can be attached to a Community Order are as follows:
Supervision – by the Probation Service. This is where an offender must attend regular meetings with a Probation Officer who will undertake work with the offender to change attitudes and behaviour.
Unpaid Work/Community Payback – This can be Ordered up to a maximum of 300 hours in any one case and requires the offender to carry out work for the benefit of the community. It can involve anything from painting the railings at the local park, through to clearing rubbish on public roads or helping out at a local religious centre.
Curfew –These types of Conditions on a Community Order require an offender to stay within the confines of their home during certain hours. These conditions can usually be imposed for up to six months. A curfew can be for up to 12 hours within any 24 hour period. Curfews are usually electronically monitored with a Tag. The most common curfew will relate to night-time when an offender will be restricted from leaving their home between certain hours. That allows offenders who hold jobs to continue their daily routine as normal.
Accredited Programmes – These are designed to address behavioural issues such as general offending, violence, sex offending, drug or alcohol abuse, domestic violence and drink driving.
Specified Activities – for example improving basic skills.
Prohibition – These Conditions on a Community Order prohibit an offender from undertaking certain activities. For example attending certain or all football matches, a particular pub or an area such as a specified shopping centre. These tend to be ordered by the courts where there is a pattern of behaviour by the offender showing that they offend regularly in one particular location.
Exclusion – This condition excludes an offender from entering certain areas. This can be imposed for up to two years.
Residence – Residence Conditions require an offender to live at a certain address and prohibit the offender from moving to another address without the prior permission of the court.
Mental Health Treatment – this can only be imposed with the consent of the offender and is done under the direction of a doctor.
Drug Rehabilitation – Such Conditions include drug testing and treatment and can only be imposed with the consent of the offender. These Conditions are often imposed on a Community Order where the offender recognises that they have a substance misuse problem and the offender wants help is breaking their addictions.
Attendance Centre – This Condition requires offenders (under the age of 25) to attend a particular centre during their sentence.
Alcohol Treatment – Alcohol Treatment Conditions can only be imposed with the consent of the offender and lasts up to six months. Again these Conditions are imposed where an offender accepts that they have an alcohol problem and actively seeks the assistance of the court and Probation Service to address that problem and work toward rehabilitationby eliminating the offender’s dependency to alcohol.
In cases where a court imposes a Suspended Prison Sentence on a convicted offender, then most of the above Conditions are also available to the court to impose on that offender as part of their suspended sentence.
