Community service

From Free net encyclopedia

Community service refers to service that a person performs for the benefit of his or her local community. Community service can refer to projects that members of certain youth organizations, such as the Boy Scouts and some high school students perform. It also refers to an alternative sentencing technique in a justice system. And at times groups of people will commit to perform service to the community as a gesture to the larger community, as part of gift economics.

Examples of community service projects include (and are not limited to):

cleaning a park

collecting much needed items including clothes, shoes, bottle tabs, bottle cans, etc.

getting involved with Habitat for Humanity

reading to older people in nursing homes

helping out your local fire or police department

Many community service projects are done by sororities and fraternities. One fraternity that was created for the sole purpose of doing community service is Alpha Phi Omega, co-ed fraternity.

Community service among youth

Community service that engages youth is often called youth service. It is a methodology that is simaltaneously employed to strengthen young peoples' senses of civic engagement and nationalism, as well as assist them in meeting educational, developmental, and social goals.

In cases of community service among youth, the type of service performed is at times similar to that performed by people convicted of crimes. It can also entail other types of service. For example, a Boy Scout may undertake improvement projects - such as repairing a structure.

When this form of community service is used, it is often a requirement of a youth organization - the Scouting organization would require it in order for a Scout to advance to the next rank. For high school students, it is often a requirement for a student to advance to the next grade level or graduate from high school to perform a certain number of hours of service.

The Highest rank of scouting, Eagle Scout, requires each scout to prepare their own service project and lead it in their community.

Service learning is the deliberate connection of community service to stated learning goals. An common misconception among educators, youth workers, and young people is the notion that service learning can be assigned. Several experts attest to the necessity of engaging youth in deliberating, planning, implementing, and reflecting on their community service, thereby sustaining high quality service learning. This is intended to make community service an effective learning tool.

As an alternative sentencing technique in criminal justice

This form of community service is used when convicted individuals are required to perform charitable services either entirely or partly in lieu of other judicial remedies and penalties.

For instance, a fine may be reduced in exchange for a perpetrator performing community service. In some cases, the subject may be able to choose their community service, which then must be documented by credible agencies, or they may be ordered by the judge to perform certain services or work for certain agencies.

Sometimes the community service is specifically targeted to the subject's transgression. Examples of this may range from sentencing a litterer to pick up litter along the highway, to a drunk driver being required to appear before school groups to explain why drunk driving is a crime and an ethical breach.

Community service sometimes is targeted specifically to provide payback to the victims of crime. For instance, someone who vandalizes park equipment may be required to repair that equipment and more.

The philosophy behind community service is at least partially that providing services that benefit society is a more constructive way to punish perpetrators, and that it is a way to try to introduce the idea of ethical action into the value system of the perpetrator.

Community service is only one of a variety of alternative sentencing techniques designed to be more effective at reforming perpetrators, to reduce recidivism, to benefit society, and to reduce the overall cost to society of sentencing criminals. Other alternatives include home-based incarceration, targeted payback of funds to victims, and drug addiction treatment rather than imprisonment.

In Europe, community service is usually an alternative to imprisonment.