Community Service - Essay Example

Community service was first implemented in the United States in the 1970s with female traffic offenders following local initiatives in Alameda County, California that advocated for non-violent offenders to be given an opportunity to offer a service to the community instead of incarceration. Researchers have tended to agree that the program was effective in avoiding overcrowding in prisons. As community service garnered support from social theorists, some hypothesized that its reparative element could serve a similar purpose as serving a sentence in prison basing their argument that a single deed has the potential to become a chain reaction that transforms into a major accomplishment in a community (Arrington 23). The question however becomes whether community service is truly punitive, and if so, whether it really transforms a society (Corporation for National and Community Service 45). Some have posited in the affirmative, claiming that the community is a secondary victim that does not suffer a direct grievance from the crime.

Still, a meaningful distinction between its punitive element, its voluntary element, and restitution can help maintain the reparative purpose of community service and prisons (Corporation for National and Community Service 67). To some, if community service is applied to repair the damages done to a community, the threat of being applied as a punishment measure is greatly reduced (University of Michigan 22). With this argument, the orders for community service have to spell out the extent and nature of the damage inflicted on a community.

Some researchers are of the opinion that community service can be a reparative sanction connecting the nature of the service to the offender’s offense. Its outcome can be positive evoking responsibility from the part of the offender for his actions (University of Michigan 45).

In a different perspective, community service can be done on a voluntary basis, especially when done by a group of volunteers who look to help the disadvantaged people in the community. The fundamental element of this line of thought is that the basis of community service should lie in the value of charity (University of Michigan 48).

This line of thought has been supported by some observers who view that the emphasis of community service should not be defined on from the perspective of being punitive or rehabilitative, rather, it should be defined from the angle of accountability. This way, its definition incorporates the virtue of volunteering (Corporation for National and Community Service 88).

This school of thought has seemed to rely on the angle that community service can be used in schools for the purposes of service learning. This in actuality seems to deviate from the angle that the reparative or punitive element of community service does not hold (University of Michigan 54).

According to the National and Community Service, the purpose of introducing community service was based on the premise that it would in actual sense enable the students to learn from their volunteering efforts, thus demonstrating academic gains existed from the program (Corporation for National and Community Service 88). Community service when applied from this viewpoint, provides learners with the critical ability to apply academic learning to actual human needs and to transform the knowledge gained into real-life situations. Community service, therefore, offers the participants with the necessary motivation and an opportunity to learn and integrate the knowledge gained in real-life situations.

Researchers have made efforts to measure the benefits accrued from community service, including the increased trust from the community as well as the increased social and political participation. Indeed research by National Community Service found that community service had potential health effects, particularly if interpreted from the angle of volunteerism. These researchers have attempted to establish a strong relationship between health and voluntary community service, showing that those who perform this service tend to have a lower mortality rate, lower depressive tendencies, and greater functional abilities.

This implies that in a welfare-oriented setting, community service has much potential to transform into an alternative treatment program rather than an alternative sanction. This is arguable from the sense that the service order should be tailored to the participant and not the offense or circumstances prompting the service. This way, community service becomes a tool essential for rehabilitating rather than punitive. Its reparative element thus becomes secondary  (Arrington 54).

Divergent views on the significance of community service tend to question its restorative element. In fact, if the motivation behind community service is embedded in its reparative nature, then participants may tend to view it as punitive. In effect, this is viewed as capable of undermining the community service programs and their ability to induce responsibility as well as improve the participant’s sense of self-worth (Arrington 66).

Researchers have attempted to emphasize that community service programs since they are different in the way they are manifested, must have their restorative elements – or objectives – delineated. Executing community service orders into practice without clearly delineating their restorative objectives runs the risk of distorting their purposeful meaning (Arrington 67). Likewise, evaluation of the community service programs, when their restorative elements are distorted, becomes difficult.