Wales CRC | Community Payback | Community Projects

Community Payback
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Offenders working to make Wales safer and cleaner.

Community Payback is a sentence available to the court used in community or suspended sentence orders to punish people for the offences they have committed.

It requires an offender to work for nothing for between 40 and 300 hours depending on the seriousness of their offences.

Community Payback work was worth some £3.5 million to communities across Wales in 2013/14, through offenders working 552,209 hours to make reparation for their offending behaviour.

Projects are nominated by the public or their representatives so they address what the public consider to be priority areas in their communities.

Community Payback is primarily a punishment achieved by restricting someone’s liberty and making them carry out demanding work in a disciplined environment for no pay.

If someone fails to carry out Community Payback work instructions they can be taken back to court and they may be sent to prison.

However, Community Payback also provides an opportunity for offenders to learn new practical and other life skills that support employment. This encourages them to behave in a positive and law-abiding way, thereby reducing reoffending and making communities safer. It enables them to feel a valued part of the community and increases their self-confidence and civic pride.

Offenders carry out their work in groups of up to eight, supervised by a Community Payback supervisor, or in individual work placements hosted mainly by voluntary or charitable organisations or social enterprises. Wherever they work, offenders are carefully assessed beforehand and public protection is always an overriding consideration.