Community Service

The advent of community service as a form of punishment in the Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita and the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita in 2023 has arguably provided significant potential within the frame of the criminal justice system as it prevails in India. This article endeavours to examine how community service can be situated in an emerging legal framework from three particular vantage points. Firstly, a historical perspective is canvassed so as to show how community service orders, a relatively new means of penalisation, can impact the society as a whole. A twin pronged approach is adopted inasmuch as efforts are made to discipline the offender on the one hand while the damage done by him or her is made good through the unpaid services provided on the other. Secondly, potency of community service is also seen through the lens of deterrence. Implications are weighed in terms of how deferred prosecution and deferred sentences can ensure that the person concerned is on a path of meaningful rehabilitation without being formally convicted or charged as an accused Thirdly, a road map is drawn to show how a sentence of community service can be operationalised from the viewpoint of the Indian penal regime

Criminal justice · Economic Justice · Perspective (graphical · Punishment (psychology · Service (business · Situated · Bangladesh Politics, Society, and Development · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · South Asian Studies and Diaspora