Payback time for offenders in annual clean-up campaign
Thousands of criminals will be given the chance to “clean up their act” and pay back to the community as part of a nationwide ‘spring clean’ campaign.
Offenders on Community Payback will work on more than 300 clear-up projects over the next week to “give back to the communities they have harmed” and show justice being done, said the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
Policing and Crime Minister Kit Malthouse said: “To criminals, there are few stronger deterrents than a community that is able to take pride in their area. Safe neighbourhoods attract jobs and investment and let people thrive, free from crime.
“Getting offenders to pay for their crimes in a way that visibly benefits the community they have harmed is critical to making them think twice about tormenting their fellow citizens.
“Offenders are involved in community projects around the country every day, and to support this year’s Great British Spring Clean, we are mobilising more than a thousand to give criminals a chance to clean up their act, payback our communities and show that justice is being done.”
The Community Payback Scheme is a joint initiative involving the police and probation services, which sees low-level offenders, who have been given an unpaid work order as part of their sentence, tackling quality-of-life crimes and issues that affect the day-to-day lives of the community and local businesses.
The MoJ said: “Each year courts hand down more than 50,000 ‘unpaid work’ requirements to punish offenders for crimes including theft, criminal damage and alcohol-related incidents. Wearing high-visibility jackets emblazoned with ‘Community Payback’ ensures offenders are seen to pay for their crimes while carrying out work that benefits the local community.”
It added that offenders on Community Payback will put in more than 10,000 hours of “hard graft clearing tonnes of litter from roadsides, scrubbing graffiti-ridden subways and maintaining beauty spots” in support of this week’s Keep Britain Tidy’s annual campaign, ‘The Great British Spring Clean’.
Other projects in the week-long clean-up include litter-picks on some of Wales’ most beautiful blue flag beaches in Anglesey and Dyfed-Powys, alongside tackling fly-tipped eyesores in Newham, London.
Over the next three years, the Government is investing an extra £93 million into Community Payback, which will see offenders completing eight million hours of unpaid work a year to “improve the environment and revitalise towns and cities”.
Members of the public can nominate a Community Payback project to suggest what unpaid work is carried out by offenders in their local area.