Council Work for Non Violent Prisoners?
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Of course I have heard of community service for low level crime but I have never seen it in action, does it really exist?
If they want to free prisoners early they should be made to finish their sentences being useful in neighbourhoods, unless/until they have a full time job.
The verge outside my house which is no more than 2 foot wide (and has a huge tree and lamp post) has been cut once this year by a council worker on a sit on mower which meant he could only do the two end bits, precariously! I noticed later only one side of the road was done.
I have just spent 2 hours doing my best to cut down about 4 foot of grass and weeds with a pair of shears, broom and secateurs. Result? Aching back and headache from bending down. What do we pay council tax for?
Council's have cut back or but not cut back the grass in our area of Sheffield, it's a few feet high..
I carry my secateurs & cut the brambles & thorns back around where I work as one of the people I support almost scratched her eye once when we were out on a walk.
janphoenix51 I have always felt that folk should help to keep their surroundings tidy even if it isn't their job to do so, but tbh I won't be able to do it as I get older. My back garden is mostly paved but with a border with the fairy garden and bushes etc. so I don't have a strimmer or lawn mower. The council should have a website where people who want to can volunteer and list what they would do to help anyone or anything in the neighbourhood.
It's the same were we live, tall grass everywhere, and when it is cut it's a terrible job, yes community service does exist
I have seen people on community service picking up litter but that’s about it. I think the problem is, most people doing community service don’t really buy into it and so it actually ends up costing more to do the job as you have to have people checking it etc
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That's our back garden , easy to manage..
I once cut all the brambles on the gennell down on the next road to me when I used to walk our daughter to her bus stop when she went to high school in the centre of Sheffield...
People walking down thanked me, some asked if I lived next to the gennell where the brambles were poking through..I told them NO showing them pictures of my neat garden, explaining that I was doing it as I was sick of getting my clothes snagged as I walked through with my daughter to catch her school bus..
A teenage lad at one of the houses at one side of the gennell shouted his mum & she came out shouting at me..The woman said I mustn't have nothing better to do..
I told her that I worked, ran my house & had a child to look after but I was sick of walking down that gennell & getting my clothes ruined, she just carried on shouting & swearing at me so I left her to it...
We have a lovely lady called Mandy who I have seen around part of the Trans Pennine Trail area where I work, Mandy is out cleaning up the Brook & litter picking around the area regularly with her two small dogs...
janphoenix51 omg what is wrong with some people. How can someone get cross at another doing something good.
janphoenix51 What a lovely looking garden. Well done. My regular gardener charged me £500 to get my garden looking like yours last month. My back garden is 130 feet long plus the hedges on one side, the hedges in the front garden and the weeds using a weed burner. I have since filled two black bags of grass cuttings using my own lawn mower and bleach to kill the weeds.
I've walked through streets of London full of trash, broken windows, filth... I complained to the council in charge of that area, but doesn't seem they did much.
Dog eat dog world. Who needs zombies.
Zombies would actually be easier to deal with than violent humans.
Anyway, I'm online dating a girl and I've told her never to come to London nor would I bring her here, I want to build a life with her away from all this insanity and madness. Just a few more months to talk to her than rush into it although we've already shared a lot of info about ourselves and photos (God, she's beautiful, and no it's not a scam I'd know).
PhilipMarc that's lovely and I hope a lovely future awaits you both. You are right to get away from London, I lived there as a child and it was bad enough, but now? No way.
I think this is dependent on the type of work they would be doing and what 'low level' crime actually is. Can you imagine pensioners asking the council to come out to check something and then being sent a 'former prisoner' calling at their property? How safe would they feel? Would they even know? I think this has some serious flaws.
I agree that any prisoners who can't get a job should work for their benefits and something such as grass cutting & groundwork should be mandatory until such time as they do get a full time job.
tumblespots I had always supposed that the work they did was out in the community, not in peoples' houses. They could clear litter, sweep roads, clear canals, trim hedgerows, clean graffiti and so on. They are never sent unattended, certainly not sent to someone's residence unattended. My understanding is that they meet up with a supervisor who allocates jobs and are clocked on and off. They should also be made aware if no show after a second warning back inside to finish sentence.
To me, low level crime is the sort where no violence whatsoever has been used and this would be especially useful for older teens to hopefully stop them in their tracks towards becoming hardened criminals, which prison would certainly do.
Lynibis As with most good intentions in the country I imagine that it might start out with them not being unattended but as things get more and more lax is that will go by the wayside..
tumblespots maybe so but community service has been around for a long time and they are not just left to turn up and work without being supervised, nothing would get done and it would be pointless to sentence folk to community service.
I definitely feel like non-violent criminals should work off their sentence but I also believe all stolen money needs to be recovered so that needs to come off their benefits or pension if they have no assets to seize. I personally prefer them working in the fields sowing and picking crops etc or doing ground preparation in areas that can be returned to productive land. We are facing a food crisis in the future around the world so preparing the UK to produce more of its own food will become critical in only a few decades from now.
BonzoBanana that's a great idea. There are many bits of land all over that could be made over into allotments.
Lynibis Also growing produce also creates jobs because if you have an abundance of fruit and veg products can be made from it, be it jam, soups, pies etc. The more food we produce the more companies exist to process that food into other products. Making and selling food locally also means less dangerous additives are in food as you don't have to make them such long life products and if those products are more competitively priced than imported food even better.
BonzoBanana if only we could get that wartime spirit without having a war. I find it very frustrating trying to volunteer as no one seems interested.
I don't see why not. Could help local council with using these people if they haven't enough staff to help with projects
Jerseydrew I think so many councils are heading toward bankruptcy so they are cutting back on many services. My worry is that councils won't take them over again if/when things improve.
I think too many people have the mind set of 'why should I do this that or the other, it is the councils job'. Well maybe it is but do they prefer our neighbourhoods to deteriorate so they can stand on their principles.
Getting offenders to do it is a win win situation. Why should they get out early before fully paying their debt to society, it will just encourage more crime.
Restorative justice where a criminal repays their debt to society by working unpaid was started historically by native Australians. It has been copied successfully by many countries since and would be a better solution than early release due to lack of space
EmmaWright762 going further back we sent our prisoners out there to slave and work and build townships to pay for their crimes. That's why the Aussies call us POMs......Prisoners of Mother England.
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