Community Service Orders for convicts have only been implemented in 22 cases since the relevant law came into force five years ago despite the beneficial impact of such orders on both the offender and the tax payer, Criminologist Sandra Scicluna said.
Speaking during a lecture at the law courts today, she explained that Community Service Orders (CSO), as issued by the courts, sentenced an offender to perform work for the general community as an alternative to imprisonment under the supervision of the Probation Services.
Statistics showed that it costs at least €54 (Lm23.17) a day to house a prisoner, Dr Scicluna said, adding that implementing CSO’s more regularly and keeping offenders out of prison would mean a big saving of tax payer’s money.
(In reply to a recent parliamentary question the Home Affairs Minister said that 285 prisoners were currently detained at the Corradino Correctional Facility. At the current estimate that would mean a cost of around €15,390 (Lm6, 605.15) a day.)
Dr Scicluna, from the Institute of Forensic Studies, explained that a CSO could be given as punishment for an offence punishable by a maximum seven years imprisonment. Current drug or alcohol abusers, prisoners with serious mental illness or showing patterns of extreme violent and sex offending were not eligible for the CSO.
She said that a number local councils and NGO’s have already benefitted from the CSO projects. Projects carried out so far included maintenance of public conveniences, public fields, animal shelters, gardening, refurbishing, restoration and helping disadvantaged persons. According to statistics 57 per cent of placements sentenced to community service worked for NGO’s and 43 per cent worked for local councils.
Drawing attention to numerous success cases Dr Scicluna spoke of a 25-year-old man with a stable job who had done 150 hours of community service work after committing a theft. A second case was that of a 34-year-old mother of three who was issued with 100 hours of community work for drug possession. Only three people at her place of work knew that it was community service and the other employees thought she was volunteering.
Paul Knepper from the University of Sheffield emphasized the success that CSO’s have had in the United Kingdom and the significant public support that they have received.
Besides promoting positive thinking it enabled social inclusion, improved education and work skills of the offender, and allowed them to find work much more easily once they have served the sentence, he added.