3.11. Substantive Law: Community-Based Sentences 
LORE RUTZ-BURRI 
In addition to incarceration and monetary sanctions, the defendant may be sentenced to some form of 
community-based sanction. 
Community Shaming 
Some judges, seeking alternatives to jail or prison, have imposed creative sentences such as requiring 
offenders to post billboards, make public apologies, place signs on the door reading, “Dangerous Sex 
Offender, No children Allowed,” and attach bumper stickers proclaiming their crimes. These sentences 
are intended to shame or humiliate the offender and satisfy the need for retribution. Shame is part of the 
restorative justice movement, but for it to be effective it needs to “come from within the offender. … Shame 
that is imposed without almost always hardens the offenders against reconciliation and restoration of the 
damage done” http://www.critcrim.org/redfeather/journal-pomocrim/vol-8-shaming/scheff.html 
“At the heart of the current discussion of shaming offenders is the assumption that shame is a simple 
emotion that comes in only two sizes: shame or no shame. But actually, shame is a complex emotion which 
comes in many shapes, sizes, and degrees of intensity. Legal scholars and judges who treat shame as merely 
binary are in the position of a skier who makes no distinction between the many kinds of snow. Just as 
lack of knowledge of types of snow may lead a skier to disaster, so the crude treatment of shame in current 
discussions could be a catastrophe.” 
1 
Community Service 
Although not necessarily specified in the criminal code, judges frequently sentence offenders to complete 
community service as a condition of probation. Generally, a probation officer or probation staff member will 
act as the community service coordinator. His or her job is to link the offender to the positions and verify 
the hours worked. 
Probation 
Kerper describes how states began to use probation as a sanction for criminal behavior. 
“The authority to grant probation probably grew out of the traditional practice of judges of “suspending 
sentences.”  The judge would simply fail to set a sentence or set the sentence and fail to direct that it 
be executed. The offender would then be released. If the offender’s subsequent behavior was satisfactory, 
nothing more would be done. If he had further difficulty with the law, the judge, usually on request of the 
1. http://www.critcrim.org/redfeather/journal-pomocrim/vol-8-shaming/scheff.html 
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