High-visibility orange jackets for offenders to wear on Community Payback sentences have reached their one year anniversary in Nottinghamshire today.
The jackets, with ‘Community Payback’ branding, are being worn by over 10,000 offenders a month at over 2,000 projects that are visible to the public in England and Wales.
The success of the jackets is clear. The public have had a chance to have their say on the projects offenders carry out and can now see the work done to repay communities. Findings from two surveys carried out after the introductions of the jackets show that public awareness of the sentence has increased from 49 per cent in November last year to 74 per cent in April. Justice is being seen to be done.
Mark Taylor, Director of Enterprise for Nottinghamshire Probation Area said:
"Wearing high visibility jackets has had a very positive effect in Nottinghamshire, people are able to see the wide variety of good work that is being carried out by offenders on Community Payback. Justice is now very clearly being seen to be done."
Allen Breeton, Neighbourhood Crime and Justice co-ordinator for Nottingham Crime and Drugs Partnership said:
‘The past year has seen a great increase in public awareness of Community Payback and the positive impact it has. Local residents have had the opportunity to influence how and where justice is carried out, through nominating projects for offenders to work on. The wearing of highly visible jackets makes it obvious to Nottinghamshire’s public that offenders are working to make amends for their crimes and improve local communities’.
Justice Minister Claire Ward said:
"These jackets have exceeded expectations in their first year. The public wanted to see this happen and have an absolute right to know what punishments offenders are carrying out in the community.
"This is one of the ways we are opening up the criminal justice system and trying to raise confidence is community sentences which can be really effective in punishing offenders, paying back to wronged communities and cutting re-offending. Over the last year, offenders have undertaken £48 million worth of work for the community – this is a real success story."
The roll out of these jackets stemmed from the review of 'Engaging communities in fighting crime' published by Louise Casey in June last year.
A large scale vote was carried out across the country in April to give the public a greater say in how criminals in orange jackets should pay back to the community. A total of 18,000 people voted for what Community Payback they would like to see offenders in 54 areas across the country carry out first from a list of five projects per area. The three week vote through the directgov website was part of the "Justice Seen, Justice Done" campaign to raise awareness of Community Payback as a tough punishment for criminals.
Courts are now able to hand out tougher and more intense penalties for a range of offenders who are ordered to carry out work such as picking up litter, renovating community centres, clearing undergrowth and cleaning up graffiti for local communities.
