KEY POINTS:
More than a third of people sentenced to community work in New Zealand last year failed to complete the sentence - a figure which has at least one critic concerned there is something wrong with the system.
Since the community work sentence was introduced in the 2002 Sentencing Act, completion rates have hovered around 75 per cent, but in the year to June 30, 2008 they dropped to 68 per cent, figures provided by the Department of Corrections show.
Between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008, about 20,000 of the 55,086 New Zealanders sentenced to community work failed to complete their sentence. Most were sent back to court to be re-sentenced, many to more community work.
Katrina Casey, general manager of the Community Probation and Psychological Services, said the department did not know why completion rates dropped last year.
"Successful completion is influenced by a wide range of variables that are not easily quantifiable and it is difficult to attribute the impact of any one particular factor to the overall result."
The four months to October this year, for example, had returned an 88 per cent completion rate, she said.
Community work replaced community service and periodic detention, which was one step down from jail.
The work normally involves improvements to some aspect of a community, such as painting schools or building walking tracks in parks. It is usually carried out at weekends under the supervision of Corrections staff. Under the sentence, offenders are required to complete between 40 to 400 hours of unpaid work as reparation for their crimes.
Annual non-completion rates of between 20 per cent and 25 per cent have been common since it was introduced.
To have a drop to 36 per cent was significant said Alan Monk, a researcher with the Sensible Sentencing Trust and former police officer. "Really, something fundamental has gone wrong."
Offenders' attitudes to community work had changed since community-based sentencing was reviewed.
The system had to give people less chances before offenders would take it seriously, Mr Monk said.
If a person does not turn up to serve community work, depending on the circumstances, enforcement action begins with reminders and verbal warnings, escalating to written warnings and, ultimately, court action.
The proportion prosecuted for breaching community work has remained around 25 per cent despite the number of people sentenced to community work increasing by nearly 10,000 people over the past three years.
The most recent Ministry of Justice figures show of 7398 people sentenced for breaching community work in 2006, most (3763) were convicted and discharged, 2450 were given more community work and 668 were jailed. The rest were fined or had their sentences deferred.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
