THERE HAS been a 113 per cent increase in the number of community service orders handed down by Resident Magistrates to petty offenders islandwide, since the introduction of the Community Service Enhancement Project in August 2000.
This represents a movement from 879 in 1999 to 1,879 as at the end of November this year.
In the four focus parishes under the programme Kingston and St. Andrew, St. Catherine, Manchester and St. James the ratio is even greater, with the increase being close to 400 per cent. A total of 324 community service orders were ordered under the project in 2000 and since then, the courts issued an additional 1,277 orders, bringing the total to 1,601.
The programme currently has 591 persons doing community service among which, 75 are women.
According to Ira Porter, who heads the project, which operates out of the Ministry of National Security, community service orders were usually handed down to non-violent offenders over the age of 17 years and who are willing to serve their sentence in this way.
They may be ordered to serve between 40 and 360 hours, and possibly up to 480 hours, if they were given consecutive or concurrent sentences. Typically, efforts are made to match the offender's skill with his job task, she noted.
She informed that though the project places emphasis on the pilot parishes, Resident Magistrates outside of the pilot areas were also being sensitised about the value of handing down this sentencing option.
"The judicial system is becoming increasingly in favour of restorative justice as a punitive measure for petty offenders," she stated.
Highlighting the benefits of this non-custodial sentencing option to the state, Miss Porter said that annually, it cost the Government approximately $37,000 per person for community service and $155,000 per person, for incarceration.
The option of community service orders has been available to the courts since 1978, but was rarely used. Efforts to increase its use were only seriously considered in 1998 and in 2000, the British Government, through the Department For International Development (DFID), provided a $580,000 grant to implement a project in Jamaica.
The programme employed a team of probation officers who were dedicated to "encouraging and ensuring an effective and affordable community service order programme in Jamaica," Miss Porter said.
She pointed out that prior to the project, few persons were given the order and as a result, they contributed to the overcrowding conditions in prisons. Additionally, she said that some persons who were ordered to do community service were unfit to do so and some did not bother to serve.
The probation officers, working in the focus or pilot parishes, ensure that persons given the orders are in fact fit to do so and they prepare a report on each offender. This informs the court about the offender's suitability and takes into consideration risk factors and the attitude of the offender towards his/her crime. It may also recommend counselling for an offender where necessary.
Close monitoring and assessment of the project ensures its success in the pilot areas.
Miss Porter informed JIS that within the four pilot parishes, 320 agencies participated and provided opportunities for the offenders to make restitution by serving in their organisation. She said that many supervisors were pleased and have permanently employed 34 persons since 2000.
Additionally, 64 persons have returned to the agencies and volunteered their services entirely on their own initiative.
Stating that offenders have benefited from the project, she noted that most of those who served were not typically repeat offenders.
The Community Service Enhancement Project, also aims to prevent prisoners who are serving short-term sentences from serving their time in maximum security facilities, where according to Miss Porter, minor offenders can become 'hardened'.
She noted that ordinarily, prisoners serving short-term sentences are sent to maximum-security facilities before they go on to minimum-security institutions. The project now facilitates a more timely classification of prisoners for minimum security prisons such as Tamarind Farm and Richmond Park. She said that since the project 1,320 such persons were transferred to these institutions.
Between September and November of this year, the project was extended to an additional four parishes. These are Clarendon, St. Ann, Trelawny and Hanover. The initiative will be implemented in all parishes by July 2003.
