Band 6+: Some people think that some types of criminals should not go to prison. Instead they should do unpaid work in the community. To what extent do you agree?

In some countries, there is a practice where some criminals can reduce their sentence by doing community work for free. Although reduction in prison time by doing unpaid work may seem like a great choice for both the government and the criminals, I believe this has more drawbacks for the whole community, like prisoners getting out of the prison quickly to go back to their sinful lives or criminals taking a light punishment for big sins.

It’s not a secret that committing a murder, a homicide, or a sexual assault is considered as a very sinful crime that can take up from 5 years to several life sentences in prison. However, if instead of sitting in jail for more than 20 years for committing a murder, criminals could do a couple of months of community service to reduce their sentence to only 10 years, then this could not only be very disrespectful to the victim’s family and also show an example to other wrong doers. It should always be logical to serve the time a community expects you to, since it was given by a judge by considering all the aspects of the crime.

Similarly, people who do “light” crimes should also serve their sentence fully. While by being in a prison for only a year could release you from jail for doing small sins like robbery or scamming others, doing additional unpaid work could make the serving time even lesser. This usually means that these types of criminals might not take their punishments seriously, resulting in repeatedly committing the same sins. Releasing prisoners too soon could have more negative effects than the expected advantages.

Even though reduction in prison time for unpaid works is already being used in countries like USA, South Korea, and Switzerland, in conclusion this could have a worse impact on the whole community. Criminals that did large crimes might end up taking light punishments which could set an example to others or be disrespectful to the victim’s family; people could be repeating their bad habits as soon as getting out of the jail. Because of these reasons, this system shouldn’t be applied anywhere.