Criminals avoided a third of community service hours last year

CRIMINALS have avoided completing nearly 280,000 hours of community service work that they were ordered to do by the courts last year, official data have revealed.

Figures from the Ministry of Justice show the amount of incomplete community service was three times higher last year than five years ago.

It means that since 2019, more than 1.3 million hours of community work has been effectively written off, equivalent to more than 30 years of community service in 2023 after criminals’ suspended sentences expired, according to the research by the Labour Party.

Shabana Mahmood MP, the shadow justice secretary, claimed “the public have no faith that justice will be done” under the Conservatives.

Community service work includes removing graffiti, clearing wasteland, painting railings or decorating public places. Offenders are supervised and wear orange vests while they work.

According to the Ministry of Justice, suspended sentence orders cannot legally be extended beyond “the length of the operational period of the order” which is set by the judge. An order ends when this period “expires”, meaning that any unpaid work remaining no longer needs to be completed.

The figures show that criminals avoided more than 19,000 pieces of community work, a ten-year high. It meant that more than a third of all community work was avoided last year.

Some of the work may not have been completed for other reasons. These include: offender deaths; deportation; orders revoked and resentenced; successful appeals; and a criminal being sent to prison after breaking the conditions of a suspended sentence.

Ms Mahmood claimed the criminal justice system was in chaos. “Victims expect sentences to be completed and community payback work to be carried out, but Rishi Sunak’s government can’t even get the basics right,” she said.

She pledged to set up community and victim payback boards to oversee community service in their local areas. This would mean Labour would ensure that criminals carried out their sentences, completed their payback, and were fully rehabilitated and reintegrated.

Responding to Labour’s questions, Edward Argar, the justice minister, said: “The disruption caused by the pandemic added to a backlog of unpaid work hours. The Government is investing an additional £93m over three years. This will allow us to increase delivery back to pre-covid levels.

“We have launched a national campaign to recruit more than 500 additional community payback staff... who will enable us to boost delivery.

“There will be a particular focus on delivering more outdoor projects that improve local areas, sustainability focused and allow the public to see justice being done.”

Mr Argar also said the number of incomplete hours should be viewed in the context of complete community payback work, which he said totalled “over 4.7 million hours” between April 2022 and March 2023.