As the prison overcrowding crisis continues and the debate over early releases intensifies, an initiative in the West Midlands offers an alternative to custodial sentences. Convicted offenders, instead of being sent to prison, work on improving waterways and green spaces around Smethwick.
This project is part of the community payback scheme, which clocked up an estimated 5 million hours across England and Wales in the last year. It covers a wide range of adult offending and can be included as part of suspended sentences. The Sentencing Act, which received royal assent in January, introduces a presumption for courts to suspend short custodial sentences of 12 months, meaning more offenders will carry out community-based punishments.
Working on the canal
On the day the Guardian visited the Smethwick project, the temperature was already in the high 20s by 9.30am when participants arrived at the canal for a day of strimming, cutting back overgrown vegetation, and clearing beer cans, plastic bags, bottles and condoms from the towpath and the canal itself.
Among them was Steve Warmer, a 54-year-old with a painful hip, dressed in a grey tracksuit, recently convicted of an offence that can attract a fine, a driving ban and up to six months in prison. As two fellow participants were given nets to trawl the canal for rubbish and thick, green duckweed, Warmer was handed a picker and the first of many black rubbish bags.
Warmer, a factory worker from Dudley, said he was "the last one standing [alive]" out of his group of friends. "I actually enjoy this work," he said. "It gives me knowledge of life and other people." The aim of community payback is to combine punishment with rehabilitation, and Warmer added: "Me and my wife now litter pick in our own street."
Not all positive
Not everyone working at the canal was as positive as Warmer, who had completed 126 of 250 hours of a community payback sentence. In the hot weather, the work was particularly demanding, with plenty of water breaks needed as the temperature rose further in the afternoon.
Courts can order between 40 and 300 hours of community payback, to be completed within a specific timeframe. Offenders must work up to 28 hours each week over three or four days if unemployed. If employed, it is organised around their working hours. Failure to comply without reasonable excuse can result in enforcement action and a return to court.
Supervisor's perspective
The supervisor at the Smethwick project was Mo Ghafoor, who spent 10 years as a corporate banker and whose responsibilities now included driving the van that transported offenders and equipment to the site. "This is 100% more fulfilling," he said. "I used to help businesses with profit but I was just a voice on the phone. Here I make a difference in the heart of my own community. I help my own mental health and that of others, the community and individuals."
Other forms of community payback, formerly known as community sentences, include removing graffiti, decorating public places and buildings such as community centres, and planting trees. Anyone can nominate a project for the scheme, provided it benefits the local community, does not take paid work away from others, and doesn't make a profit for anyone.
Impact on reoffending
Among the offenders who will spend less time in prison and more time in the community as a result of the Sentencing Act are burglars, shoplifters and criminals convicted of assault. Latest statistics, from July to September 2024, show that adults released from custody with sentences of less than 12 months had a reoffending rate of 68.2%, compared with 22.9% for sentences of 12 months or more.
While critics might see community payback as a soft sentencing option, it is not a view shared by Ghafoor. "We look at the individual to whom it gives a structure to their life," he said. "It often breaks a negative cycle and changes their mindset, and therefore brings reoffending down."
