Community Service
This was, in many ways, a memorable experience. One of my prisoners has recently asked me if I think it works. I have to say no, it is not the answer just as crime equals punishment is an unsafe conclusion built of faulty thinking. Yet experience and the people I met have been a significant incentive toward my activities in prisoner support. I came to regard those I laboured beside as good comrades and friends during our journey through adversity.
At times I have even thought of this period as a kind of preliminary training.
The initial meeting with my case manager took place five weeks after my final court appearance. I have to say that such one sided, blinkered and intimidating fiascos such as that particular hearing are by no means uncommon just as injurious effects to a defendants health are also quite the norm. Now, some three years later there have been lasting injurious outcomes for myself which inevitably serve to enhance my sense of anger.
I began community service at a time when I was no longer experiencing directly suicidal moods. Yet I was far from well and took the prescribed regular anti depressant tablets from the Doctor I had seen at our local mental health hospital. On the advice of my own Doctor, I still take these as part of my regular medication and I feel safe about this.
When the time came to begin ‘Community Service’ I received a terse, badly phrased letter informing me that I was “instructed” to report to the Probation Offices that particular Friday at 9 a.m.
My case manager had the insight to warn me to expect this kind of language. It is necessary and “it has to be this way” yet it does raise issues around the simple question of ‘why?’ ‘What would be the anticipated outcome if it were not like this?’ etc. After all, the old warning that you reap what you sow is very true and those responsible for the social condition of England and its “Justice” system need to be aware of this.
The only work on offer to me was on an allotment. Suggestions I had made were not accepted. This raises questions especially when I was there an experienced academic well used to working with people who were educationally disadvantaged as the overwhelming majority of “offenders” are. Yet I was on an allotment even though I had suggested better venues such as The Salvation Army or a charity for the homeless if community service means what it says. My case manager knew why but “could not tell me” leaving me with only one conclusion – premeditated vindictiveness and spite.

I saw, read and heard nothing to substantiate claims one often hears, particularly from certain middle class prison reform organisations, of community service benefiting those undertaking it. As always statistics must be to be read with caution. A colleague at the time once told me “It’s all about telling them what they want to hear.” It was easy to understand what he meant then just as it surely is now
Let us begin on that particular first Friday morning. We were all safely strapped into the small, rather cramped and very dirty van. Our safety seemed to be important and indeed, so it should be.
Sometimes I would look up as Gulls filled the vast sky with their plaintiff cries, a sound that is precious to me and I have always loved. I remembered hearing them while in police custody. They seemed so near and were a very memorable indication that whatever the situation one can and must try to look up and look beyond yet also, be ready for whatever life may bring. There must be constant seeking for real truth.
We were told ‘the rules.’ Mobile phones had to be turned off and there should be no playing of musical instruments, not that I ever saw any and once, for a joke, I assured a supervisor I would leave my grand piano at home.
Also there must be no “effing and jeffing” as one of our supervisors used to say. In other words there should be no swearing well, not at least in theory. Then, off we went often in high spirits (though not always depending on how life was treating us) to spend the day together working on an allotment growing produce which, I understood would be later taken to elderly people in the community. I saw, during my time, a statement declaring that this was supposed to engender a feeling of self worth. Instead of unquestioning agreement may I again advocate caution?
This clearly rises a number of questions and among them ‘On what grounds is it assumed this feeling of self worth is absent? Who or what exactly is responsible for its absence?’ Was this considered to be the same for every “offender” etc. Straight away I felt accepted by my comrades. We mucked about and I became known as the magistrate. I have never been quite sure why but in keeping with the general mood I well remember declaring on more than one occasion “Bugger me! The magistrate cried more in anticipation than anger.” A merry quip for which I understand I was long remembered.
This is what used to be known as community service, then community punishment and, the last I heard community payback, no doubt, a little further down the track, in keeping with current fads and silly thinking it will be called something else. Perhaps the name it is given should be dependent on the exact message that name is intended to convey.
Community service is a way of exploiting the labour potential of “offenders” without sending them to prison. It is built around the idea that those who society labels criminals owe something to that society. However, the fact of the matter is that this unpaid labour as well as that endured by people in prison is indeed tantamount to little other than a form slavery. The idea that I or any of my colleagues owed society anything is an ill-considered falsehood. In addition, when we remember that the present government has created over 3,000 new offences since it first came to power under Tony Blair perhaps this hints at least one way of keeping people out of prison. There must be a halt to the mass criminalisation of mainly deprived and disadvantaged working class people.