SENTENCED TO EARN: COMMUNITY PAYBACK ON THE WAY BACK AS FINANCIAL PAYBACK?
Dave Nicholson, Practitioner Researcher in Penal Mutualism and Director of Nornir Ltd
‘I believe community punishment must be tougher still. Unpaid work must pay back, so I will shortly bring together business leaders to explore a model whereby offenders work for them, and the salary is paid not to the offender but towards the good of victims.’
Shabana Mahmood, Lord Chancellor Independent Sentencing Review – Hansard – UK Parliament
A striking feature of the government’s initial response to the Independent Sentencing Review is this proposal to bring back financial reparation for victims as an alternative to a short prison sentence for offenders. It proposes to introduce an innovative form of unpaid work requirement of a Community Order (Community Payback – CP) whereby people on CP are placed in good jobs that pay wages ‘not to the offender but towards the good of victims.’
Financial reparation like this has been a default setting for responding to crime across the world and throughout human history (Harding, 1982; Nicholson, 2021) But a major problem has always been the lack of good jobs to make it possible. Early Probation Orders (Bochel, 1976) had provision to do this, but most people on probation then, as now, were in low paid jobs or unemployed and so unable to pay anything back financially towards the good of victims.
The nineteenth century practice of committing offenders to the custody of suitable employers went some way to solving this problem by providing a means of paying financial reparation to victims directly from offenders’ wages. (Bochel, 1976).
The twentieth century went further with schemes like The Minnesota Restitution Centre as a prototype for the return of reparation through financial payback (Hudson & Galaway, 1974). It negotiated payback agreements between victims and offenders and then enabled offenders to keep to the agreement by securing jobs for them. This employment would then continue to support their rehabilitation and reintegration once they had completed their payback.
The government’s proposal to revive schemes like this in the form of paid CP with an employer potentially provides a twenty first century solution to this age old problem of inability to pay and appears to put the radical but traditional approach of financial payback firmly back on the policy agenda.
It also potentially restores it to its historical role as the default setting for the response to most crimes. This promises a significant contribution to the government’s ambition to abolish most short prison sentences, which was one of the main recommendations of the Independent Sentencing Review. (HM Government, 2025a)
It is something of a surprise then, not to say a missed opportunity, to see that this appears to be the last we hear of the proposal. The subsequent Sentencing Bill says not a word about enabling the implementation of financial payback or even anything about the further exploration of its feasibility. ( HM Government, 2025b )
This is even more surprising and an even greater missed opportunity in the light of developments already underway in Greater Manchester. For the past three years an informal collective of charities and social enterprises co-ordinated by Nornir Ltd and funded by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority Foundational Economy Innovation Fund has enlisted people on CP to develop and strengthen the Foundational Economy across the City Region. (GMCA, 2025) Working with members of the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter they are now proposing to open up employment in the Foundational Economy for people on probation by bringing Greater Manchester business leaders together to explore an enhanced model of CP that builds on the government’s original financial payback proposal and makes good offender employment under the terms of the Charter reparative for victims as well as rehabilitative and re-integrative for offenders. (Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter, 2025)
This involves finding employers in the private, public or third sector who are willing to treat an unpaid work placement under CP as a work trial. The premise is that after successfully completing the placement of a specified number of hours of unpaid work for the employer, the offender is at least guaranteed an interview for paid employment with them.
This approach has the important advantage that the unpaid work being undertaken by the offender provides the incentive for them to use it as an opportunity to achieve something as well as pay back towards the benefit of victims. This might include building relationships, showing commitment, and earning praise. All of these are things which repeat offenders have often not done successfully in the past, but which are known to play a part in their breaking out of the cycle of reoffending in the future. (Graffam et al, 2004)
A second feature of the Greater Manchester scheme involves the employer making a charitable donation towards the benefit of victims equivalent to the monetary value of the unpaid work undertaken by the offender for them. This payment, and their willingness to treat the placement as a work trial can be part of their commitment to delivering social value and can further demonstrate the Corporate Social Responsibility required by their membership of the Good Employment Charter.
The role of good employment in successful rehabilitation and re-integration of offenders is well established. (Harrison & Schehr, 2004) The rediscovery of its role in reparative justice for victims is an opportunity missed if the government fails to build on the Greater Manchester initiative or take forward its own initial response to the Independent Sentencing Review. Not only would this be a missed opportunity, it would be a failure on the part of successive governments to fulfil their own commitment to put justice for victims at the heart of the Criminal Justice System (HM Government, 2023) and a failure of the present government to fulfil its commitment ‘to make work pay’ (HM Government, 2024) as well as a failure to ‘make unpaid work pay back’ as its own initial response to the Independent Sentencing Review promised.
Contact: David.Nicholson@smitf.org
REFERENCES
Bochel, D. (1976) Probation and After-Care: Its Development in England and Wales. Scottish Academic Press. Edinburgh.(page 4)
Graffam, J., Shinkfield, A., Lavelle, B., & McPherson, W. (2004). Variables Affecting Successful Reintegration as Perceived by Offenders and Professionals. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 40(1–2), 147–171. https://doi.org/10.1300/J076v40n01_08
Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter, (2025) https://gmgoodemploymentcharter.co.uk/blogs/posts/2025/september/employ-those-with-convictions-it-s-good-for-business/
Harding, J. (1982) Victims and Offenders: Needs and Responsibilities. London. Bedford Square Press.
Harrison, B., & Schehr, R. C. (2004). Offenders and Post-Release Jobs: Variables Influencing Success and Failure. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 39(3), 35–68. https://doi.org/10.1300/J076v39n03_03
HM Government (2023) https://www.gov.uk/government/news/victims-placed-at-heart-of-justice-system-under-radical-shakeup
HM Government (2024) https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/make-work-pay
HM Government (2025a) www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-sentencing-review-final-report
HM Government (2025b) www.gov.uk/government/publications/swentencing-bill-2025
Hudson, J. & Galaway, B. (1974)’Undoing the Wrong,’ Social Work, May 1974, pp. 313-18
Nicholson, D. (2021) Giving back by paying back: recasting Community Payback as mutual restitution through financial payback. British Journal of Community Justice. Vol 17 (1) 79-91