Criminals managed to avoid a third of community service hours last year with ... trends now
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Newly released figures have revealed that criminals across the UK managed to avoid a third of all community service hours handed out last year.
Official Ministry of Justice data showed that criminals avoided 19,000 community work orders, more than a third of all community service sentences handed out.
Around 280,000 hours of community service were effectively written off, three times higher than five years ago.
It is also the highest figure since 2014, though a larger proportion of community service was left incomplete in previous years. Since 2019, more than 1.3 million hours of community service went incomplete after suspended sentences expired.
A community service order ends following the 'length of the operational period of the order', set by a judge during sentencing.
Official Ministry of Justice data showed that criminals avoided 19,000 community work orders, more than a third of all community service sentences handed out
Shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood (pictured) claimed victims of crime had been abandoned by the Conservative Party
In response, justice minister Edgar Argar (pictured) said: 'The disruption caused by the pandemic added to a backlog of unpaid work hours'
Legally, any unpaid work remaining in a criminal's sentence no longer needs to be done when this period 'expires.'
Community service often includes removing graffiti, clearing wasteland, painting railings or decorating public spaces.
The shadow
