Everyone appreciates it when our parks are kept clean, or when weeds are pulled out of our natural areas and green spaces. People also like it when graffiti vandalism is covered over, or when trash and litter are cleared from the roadsides around town.
Everyone likes these things but — even including the volunteers from various area groups to clean up parks, schoolyards, the river valley or our highways — only a small minority of us do them.
It’s easy to thank these volunteers for doing work that most of us would rather leave to someone else.
So what should our reaction be when we see a group of people in orange jumpsuits at work in our parks?
It should be appreciation and gratitude, right? Or is it judgement?
“Community service” is a sentencing option for a fairly large group of lawbreakers in our justice system. People guilty of non-violent crimes — many attached to the wrong decisions people make under the influence of alcohol or drugs — who are not deemed to be a danger to the community, can fill their terms in remand with community service.
When it works, it’s a way for people on the wrong side of the law to make some amends for their behaviour. But more, it’s a way for people who feel disassociated to re-connect to society.
The theory goes: people who feel they have a stake in their community are less likely to do things that harm the community. But that feeling of having a stake only works when there is some kind of acknowledgment for whatever it is that people contribute.
Community service is easy to put on a sentencing report, but to be honest, the program can be a lot of work to monitor and administer. Where does a person go to perform the hours of service required? Who will monitor that the work was done and sign off when it’s finished?
From conversations with people who have worked with people doing community service, taking part in the monitoring appears to be a community service of its own.
Sometimes it’s as much work to keep track of the people in the program as the work being done.
Plus, you sometimes have to deal with participants who are not all that appreciative of the opportunity being given them.
That’s why giving remand inmates the option of community service cleaning parks and other such work is appealing.
We need our parks cleaned and weeded, but if the work were paid, the costs would quickly add up.
That’s why Dave Matthews, planning and technical services supervisor with the city, calls the community service option a “win-win situation.”
Our corrections people need work for community options people to do; the city needs workers who “volunteer.”
But Matthews also gets the next step that is required. From his perspective, the city really appreciates the contribution being made.
So should we. The participants in the community service program are putting themselves in a pretty humbling position — bright orange jumpsuits, garbage bags and all.
They are facing the consequences of what they have done, and are making some restitution to us all, generally.
It’s up to us to acknowledge that when the work is done and the sentence is served, that there is a certain cleaning of the slate.
The difference between community service and a forced labour program is the choices that we make — on both sides.
The people in remand can choose to make community service a positive experience, and so can we.
Nice, clean parks, free of weeds are something to appreciate and value.
Thanks for the work, guys. Here’s hoping things go better for you in the future.
Greg Neiman is an Advocate editor.