The number of criminal offenders sentenced to do community work rather than spend time in prison has been increasing steadily over the last decade. But what does community work entail?

James clocks off but his day is not over. He drives over to an animal sanctuary, where he will spend three hours feeding and caring for abandoned dogs. He heads there three times a week and he enjoys it, although it was imposed on him.

James is one of several people who have been handed down a community service sentence, instead of being sent to prison. When sentencing an offender, judges and magistrates have various methods of punishment available at their discretion including prison, probation, community work and fines.

“Community sentences allow offenders to work in the community under the supervision of the probation service,” Miriam Sevasta, director of probation and parole, said.

In Malta, the community work by offenders was introduced in June 2003 and this is done upon recommendation of the court or the defence lawyer.

The minimum sentence is 40 hours of community work and the maximum is 480 hours over two years.

So far, the maximum has only been given once, earlier this year.

At the moment, the probation department supervises 1,000 offenders who have been given community-based sanctions. The kind of work includes: caring for abandoned animals, maintenance work at football nurseries and local council offices, kitchen help, aiding people with disabilities and public gardening.

Senior probation officer Antonella Spagnol and the director of probation and parole, Miriam Sevasta speaking on the benefits of community service orders. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

“Our aim is to help rehabilitation and reintegration in society,” said Ms Sevasta.

She said her department was very cost effective: “A person in prison costs €50 a day, someone on probation costs nothing,” she pointed out.

Also through probation and parole, the prison population is being lowered and given that at the moment there are 600 inmates, this is a plus.

According to Antonella Spagnol, senior probation officer, the idea is that the offender gives “a service” to society as a way to “redeem himself”.

“There has to be an element of sacrifice,” she said, adding that the average age bracket of offenders doing community work was between 26 to 35.

The decision is made by the court, upon the recommendation of experts from the probation department.

“Firstly, the offender has to be motivated to do community service. It is not something that can be forced on them,” Ms Spagnol said. Secondly, an assessment is carried out to ensure they are fit to be out in society.

“If they have an aggressive behaviour or, say, a drug problem, then community service is not for them,” she added.

In the majority of cases, community work is ordered in sentences handed down for theft cases.

The abilities and talents of the offender are taken into consideration when planning the choice of community work. “Each person has his or her own story and we are in constant contact with NGOs that help us a lot with placements. It is the senior probation officer who ultimately assigns the role,” she said.

Asked if the model implemented here was similar to the American system of community service, where people are sentenced to work in areas related to their offence, Ms Spagnol said that Maltese society is “not yet ready” for that.

“If a man steals from an elderly person, then we would not send that person to work in an elderly home because there would be too much tension,” she said.

Once the placement is decided, a time plan is worked out for the offenders to carry out their unpaid community service, under supervision. “When we see that a person is not reaching the target, we report back to the office,” she said. If they fail to turn up, they are returned to court for being in breach of the order.

Between 2010 and 2014 as total of 109 community work orders were issued and just 11 were stopped.

“By the end of it, some do such a fantastic job that they are employed while others keep doing voluntary work,” Ms Spagnol noted.

Community service orders are increasing:

2011 – 12 orders
2012 – 18 orders
2013 – 32 orders
2014 – 32 orders
2015 (till end of May) - 17 orders