Research project AP/31 (Research action AP)
1. Background
Community service (Autonome WerkStraf - AWS) was introduced in April 2002. Since then it has been applied with increasing frequency (9568 cases in 2007). In his policy declaration of April 2008 the Minister for Justice specifically incentivised the use of this penalty. However, there has been little study to date of the content of this penalty. The exception to this rule is the “Learning and Working As a Punishment” study carried out in 2006/2007 by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Université de Liège. This study was, for the most part, a descriptive and quantitative analytical approach to the types of community service imposed. Scientific investigation of offenders’ perception of this penalty provides a further innovative approach to the central figure in the penalty. This approach will additionally create the opportunity to draw the lines for further study of the efficiency of community service. Therefore, the project will provide benefits for all « stakeholders » in community service (AWS).
2. Objectives
To study:
- The significance of community service as perceived by the offender:
by a variety of means including the determination of:
o Factors which help determine the punishment content of community service
o The significance attributed to rehabilitation
o The benefit which the offender ascribes to community service
o The perception of the proportionality of the penalty to the offence
o The integrative or disintegrative character of the community service
o The assumed effect on the future behaviour of the offender
- The way in which the offender experiences the legal framework of community service
- The congruence between the thought of the penalty before its execution and
its specific execution
