Community Service As A Criminal Penalty

When you were a child, you probably sometimes saw men in orange jumpsuits picking up trash by the side of the road in the Florida heat as you drove down a decidedly pedestrian-unfriendly road, such as the Florida Turnpike. Your parents might have tried to turn it into a cautionary tale about why you should not get in trouble with the law; if you get convicted of a petty crime, the court will order you to do community service, so you will have to pick up trash under the hot sun on Saturday mornings instead of sleeping in late or going to Chuck E. Cheese. Their cautionary tale is an oversimplification. If the trash pickers were there for more than a few consecutive weeks, they were probably incarcerated, especially if they were wearing orange jumpsuits; this is a horrifying scenario for so many reasons. If a court sentences you to community service, you have avoided the worst-case scenario, and even though community service is not the worst way to spend a few non-consecutive days, there are reasons to want to avoid it. If you are facing misdemeanor charges, and there is a chance that a court will order you to perform community service if you get convicted, contact a Tampa criminal defense lawyer.

Is Community Service the Lightest Sentence You Can Get?

The law expresses criminal penalties as a range of consequences that courts can impose for a criminal conviction; some offenses carry a minimum sentence, and most have a maximum. With misdemeanor charges, the courts have the option to sentence convicted defendants to serve time on probation, in county jail, or both, as well as to impose criminal fines. In addition to these, or instead of them, they can order defendants to complete a certain number of hours of community service. In felony cases, community service can also be part of the terms of a convicted defendant’s probation.

The judge gets to decide what kind of community service you must do. The purpose of community service is to compensate the public for the harm that the defendant caused or to educate the defendant about the dangers of his or her behavior. In that way, it is similar to when courts order people convicted of financial crimes to pay restitution to people they defrauded, or when people convicted of violent crimes must pay restitution to the people they injured. Picking up trash or repairing public property are common forms of community service sentences imposed for property crimes, for example.

While performing community service is not the most unpleasant consequence for a criminal conviction, it is still worthwhile to fight your charges if you are being accused of a crime punishable by community service. No matter the sentence, the conviction goes on your record, which is as bad a punishment as any sentence short of jail time.

Contact Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Bryant Scriven

A criminal defense lawyer can help you get justice if you are facing criminal charges for a minor offense where you might face a sentence of community service.  Contact Scriven Law in Tampa, Florida to schedule a consultation.

Source:

leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0900-0999/0948/Sections/0948.06.html