From Providing ‘Alternative Punishment’ to Offering ‘Punishment in the Community’: The History and Development of Community Penalties in Britain

Abstract

The idea of dealing with offenders in the community rather than sending them to prison has a long history. We have moved far away from the pre-eighteenth century era where punishment meant punishing the body to the eighteenth and nineteenth century where offenders were segregated from their communities often putting them into prisons, which is still one of the dominant forms of punishment in the present days. From late nineteenth century until now, we can observe a move towards punishing and controlling offenders in the community. Basically, the community penalties started its journey as providing ‘alternative to custody’ measures aimed at the welfare and therapy of offenders outside the prison walls. This rationale provided base for the sentencing practices for quite a long time. However, during 1970s, this rational came under attack from some research evidences suggesting that rehabilitation programmes are ineffective in reducing offending. This paper highlights a brief history of the main community penalties in Britain. It specifically focuses on the reason for a change in approaches of community penalties from providing ‘alternative to punishment’ to offering ‘punishment in the community’.