They start arriving at the Rolling Meadows Circuit Court building at 6:40 a.m., well ahead of the 7 o’clock check-in time. They don’t want to be late.
For these community service workers in the Cook County Sheriff’s Work Alternative Program (SWAP), being late could mean being sent home and having to come back another day of working off their court-imposed sentences.
Talking to civilians, falling asleep on the job or being insolent to a sheriff’s deputy also could mean losing the hours they’ve worked that day and having to do them all over again.
By 7 a.m., there are 17 offenders for the deputies to search, check in, then assign to work duties for which they won’t be paid. One offender is here for possession of marijuana, another for bouncing checks. A majority, though, have been sentenced to community service by a Cook County judge because of traffic violations.
None want to be here, but several say it beats the alternative-going to jail for their crimes.
Public service, also called community service, is a fast-growing form of alternative sentencing that can be a benefit to both the communities where the work is done and the offenders doing the work, its proponents say.
“You take a person who has never been supervised before in his life,” said Daniel Lavery, director of SWAP, “and then you supervise him at a work site for 30 days and it’s amazing what people can do. The community benefits from this program, as well as the justice system and the offender himself.”
Paul Robinson, a law professor at Northwestern University who has served on task forces studying sentencing, said there has been a push in the last five to seven years for alternatives to prisons as punishment, driven in part by cost concerns. It’s expensive to keep someone in jail, and with so many prisons overcrowded, it’s better to allocate the space to violent criminals and find some other sentence for the non-violent offenders, he said.
So communities are turning to alternative sentences such as halfway houses, home arrests, intensive probation in which the offender is closely monitored and community service.
Who is sentenced to community service? It can be just about anybody, but it’s more often meted out to non-violent offenders who have committed misdemeanors. Illinois has statutes requiring all people convicted for a second time of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs (DUI) and some people convicted of driving with a revoked license to either serve jail time or do public service, and frequently judges choose the latter for them.
Juveniles with offenses such as vandalism, curfew violations or serious traffic violations also are frequently sentenced to public service. “A lot of times it’s used for youthful offenders who will not have the financial resources to pay the fines,” said Lake County Circuit Court Judge Henry Tonigan, “or you feel the community service will have a stronger detrimental effect and encourage the rehabilitation of the youthful offender.”
Sometimes, Tonigan said, the judge can make a recommendation for the type of community service to be done. In one recent case Tonigan heard, an attorney suggested a young offender do community service at the synagogue where he had sprayed swastikas. “I specifically rejected that idea,” Tonigan said. “I didn’t think it was appropriate to put him back with the victims.” It was then left up to the public service department in the probation-court services division in Lake County to find a work site for the offender.
Cook County Associate Judge Arthur Janura said a defendant’s perceived character will often play a part in whether he or she is sentenced to jail, community service or a combination of the two.
“You look at what the offense was,” Janura said, “the criminal history of the defendant, whether he’s been to jail before, and what type of individual it is. If you have a violent or dangerous person, then community service might not be appropriate.” For minor offenses such as disorderly conduct, on the other hand, “it might be inappropriate to use the jail space because that might mean releasing someone else (who is more violent) and could be a threat.”
In Cook County, second-time DUI offenders or people deemed to need more close supervision are assigned to SWAP, while those who are considered more self-directed and have committed less serious crimes, like excessive traffic violations, are assigned to a department of social services community service program. Those in the latter program don’t meet at the courthouse. They go directly to the work site, which could be a hospital, library or charitable organization.
The Schaumburg Township District Library, for example, has about 15 people a month doing 300 hours of community service. They sort date-due slips, put puzzles in the children’s room back together and take out the garbage, among other things.
“There’s one woman I’d love to hire,” said director of circulation Jane O’Brien. “When she’s done, she sort of cleans up the room and keeps rearranging things, so she’s a real self-motivator. We’ve had a few bad experiences, but most are very good. It’s been a real benefit to us.”
Offenders in the SWAP program have a harder day’s work than doing puzzles. They frequently do physical labor, like washing all the police cars at the courthouse; deputies watch them to make sure they’re kept busy.
A 19-year-old who had been sentenced to 12 days of community service for a traffic offense called the punishment “very effective” and said he had spent days cleaning up abandoned lots and shoveling snow around the courthouse. “Most of the time, it goes pretty fast. Besides, it’s either this or serve time in jail.”
Another man, though, sentenced to 30 days of community service, said he might have preferred a few days in jail. “This is worse than going to jail,” he said, “because here you have to work all day and in jail you just sit around.”
One problem with some public service programs, said law professor Robinson, is a lack of supervision. “So people sit around a coffee room, they check in and wander off and do nothing,” he said. “But you can’t have supervision without staff, and a lot of programs aren’t staffed well.”
Elgin Police Department community service coordinator J.W. Smith said his city had tried public service workers in the past and stopped using them because without much monitoring, they weren’t doing their jobs. Two years ago, the city tried it again, this time using the police department and Smith to oversee the workers, and Smith said it has been successful.
Of the 183 workers who have been assigned to Elgin in the last two years, Smith said he has had to send back to the probation department only two. “Before, we’d send them to the park to work,” and they might leave or just sit around, he said. Now he takes them there and checks to make sure they do their work.
Lavery said the SWAP program has more than doubled the number of offenders it has worked with in the last three years, in part because of Sheriff Michael F. Sheahan’s support of expanding the program. In 1991, 2,300 offenders were part of the program. In 1993, that number jumped to about 6,600, according to Lavery. Many do their time on weekends because they hold jobs during the week.
In McHenry County, about 450 people are doing public service, said Dana Bulmer, public/community service coordinator. The workers aren’t supervised as in the SWAP program. Instead, they report directly to the work site. And Bulmer said she typically has more workers than jobs. She’s always looking for new work sites and sometimes takes suggestions from offenders.
Teens, for example, have asked if they could do their public service in their high schools, and sometimes it can be worked out with a principal, Bulmer said. Adults might do their public service in their churches, but they “have to clean the church, or do something that’s above and beyond” what they normally would be doing there she said.
“There are various problems that happen,” Bulmer said, “like if a work site runs out of work or people don’t show up, but for the most part it works out. We have a very high success rate.”
