Gripe : Why Cut Community Service Option? : JOAN KAGAN, Past President, California League of Alternative Service Programs

I have been involved in the Criminal Justice system in Los Angeles County for the last 16 years, and in the past several years, the courts have been using community service as a viable alternative (during sentencing). But we have seen our number of volunteers cut in half since September.

In a lot of traffic offenses, the courts are not giving community service as an option. It has to do with the budget crisis, the fact that the courts, the county, need the money. So they choose to collect it. But it’s not a very logical time to do that. At a time when so many people are out of work, when there are so many budget cuts in community service agencies, the courts decided to cut community-service opportunities.

We work with about 500 to 600 agencies. Community service can mean a lot of things. Working in an office. Graffiti removal. We do a lot of graffiti removal. Caltrans (the California Department of Transportation), the Department of Public Libraries, AIDS Project L.A. We have a lot of people working in the colleges. The schools are run down; they don’t have the help to clean them like they should. Court-referred volunteers are doing a lot of that.

We have stacks of letters from our agencies in which they are asking where all the help is. They are saying that the help was invaluable for them. This just seems like the wrong time to do this.

I’ve been doing this for a lot of years and I do this because I believe it is a worthwhile thing. It helps the defendant because it is an alternative. It has helped many offenders regain their self-worth. It helps the judge because it gives him or her an alternative in sentencing. It helps keep our jails from being overcrowded. It helps nonprofit groups in the city and the county. On the whole, it’s a very worthwhile thing.

In the San Fernando court, they’re saying that community service is no longer an option in traffic cases. What the courts are doing, basically, is saying you have to come up with the money. But a lot of (offenders) don’t have the money. People have to keep coming back. They’re clogging up the courts. So it touches a lot of people.

It’s taken many years for this program to prove that it is effective, both monetarily and in service to the community. This option has worked well and many of our social service, city and county agencies have benefited greatly from the work. It is sad to say we are moving backward instead of forward.