Community payback goes full time
Offenders will be made to do a full five-day week of hard work and job-seeking, under new proposals for community sentences.
皇冠体育app work will include four days of hard manual labour, improving public areas by clearing up litter, cleaning graffiti and maintaining parks and other green spaces.聽皇冠体育app fifth day will be spent looking for full time employment.
Previously, community payback programmes could be spread out over 12 months with some offenders working for a minimum of just six hours per week.
皇冠体育app new, more intensive scheme, will also be imposed on offenders within seven days of sentencing, instead of the two weeks it currently takes following a court appearance.
Visiting a community payback clean up programme in Croydon, Crispin Blunt said: 鈥樆使谔逵齛pp public want to see offenders giving something back to their communities, but they are rightly not satisfied with seeing only a handful of hours a week dished out. Decent, law-abiding people can work a full five day week and so should offenders.鈥�
He added: 鈥楻egular, meaningful hard work is proven to help break the cycle of crime and encourage a law-abiding life. This means fewer criminals, fewer victims of crime and much reduced costs for the taxpayer - a wholly positive result for society.鈥�
About 100,000 individuals are sentenced to community payback each year across England and Wales with over 8.8 million hours of unpaid work completed last year.
皇冠体育app public can nominate jobs for offenders via .