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Article: Don't Call It Community Service
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- November 17, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Unintentionally, judges across this land have been giving
community service a bad name. In exchange for venality and
violations of both law and public trust, white-collar criminals are
often sentenced to punitive doses of "community service" in lieu of
spending time in jail. This sentencing category needs a change of
name. We suggest that it be called "compensatory service," a term
that speaks directly to the offender's obligation to rearrange the
"weights" ("pensa" in the Latin) on the scales of justice.
The counterweight of "compensatory" service would balance the
scales of justice once again, making things right between the
lawbreaker and the society the broken law was there to ...