Community service - Research Paper Example

Community Service Originating from Nottingham in the early 70s, community service involves carrying out a social service for the well-being and benefit of an entire community. Although its’ original purpose was to substitute harsh punishment on criminal offenders. When undertaken on a voluntary basis i.e. out of one’s accord, it is mostly done to assist the disadvantaged and vulnerable people in the community. The foundation of community service lies on the virtue of charity and importance of having a work ethic.

Schools that encourage their students to partake in community service aim at inculcating a sense of responsibility towards their neighbors and environment in general. When magistrates compel first-time law-breakers to undertake community service, they aim at promoting discipline and advocating for reform that will restrain the law-breaker from repeating the offence (Godhbole). Fundamentally, community service is aimed at community development where an individual-volunteer or philanthropist, or a group of people may decide to teach children from less fortunate backgrounds, help build homes, clean and attend to the elderly in homes, clean the streets, plant trees, fix public utilities or assist in animal shelters.

Educational institutes steer young people to community service to develop in them a sense of purpose for their lives as they progress to other levels and overall to groom their personalities. Philanthropists, who are people moved to better a society through various works of charity, usually initiate foundations that focus on various aspects of the society for instance, education or environment (Daniel). The primary benefit of community service is that it spawns off a development in the community that would seem overwhelming to an individual.

For example, if a person notices there is a piece of land that is neglected and he/she would look better with trees and flowers, they can decide to come together with their friends and start a beautification activity. Other members of the community may be inspired by such an activity and volunteer to join; this may ignite a chain reaction where many people may end up participating and turning a single activity to a project covering the entire community. Such a project brings people together and develops a spirit of togetherness and caring for one another, and the surroundings (Arrington).

My own personal experience partaking in community service took place in a Buddhist temple where I volunteered for three months. The activities I carried out included serving lunch, cleaning the temple and statues, and directing people to the different prayer sessions. It was a fulfilling experience as it taught me the importance of spirituality as I interacted with the priests and gave me an opportunity to help people from different occupations. The way the priests lead such simplistic lives inspired me and interacting with ordinary people emulating their lives made it seem achievable.

I developed a sense of discipline from following the schedule of the activities at the temple as they were adhered to strictly. In addition, the community service gave me exposure to people of different backgrounds, cultures and ages. It is detrimental, however, to impress community service upon high school students because it makes them repel against it and lose enthusiasm. That kind of repulsion may make them develop a negative attitude towards the whole exercise, which in turn could cause them not to ever want to participate in any form of community service in the future.

Having a negative attitude implies that the student may not reap any personal or social benefits from the exercise. Therefore, when schools institute community service as a mandatory exercise, they must also give the student an opportunity develop an appreciation for it. For example, the school may allow the student to select when to undertake the exercise and the field in which they will volunteer (Pearce). Many people do not believe in community service as a form of reforming a law-breaker; however, they still advocate for it because it is cheaper than having to incarcerate.

As an alternative to imprisonment, community service is commonly termed as community-based corrections. They are imposed on ‘small-time’ offenders who may have been incarcerated for only a part of their sentence; once they are granted release they are expected to abide by rules of the designated community-based correction. They are usually carried out in halfway houses where a former convict is assigned a supervisor, legally termed as parole officer, who monitors his or her behavior and helps with the transition from prison to society.

For first-time offenders, they are assigned a probation officer whose work is to ensure they carry out the community service smoothly and with discipline and later report to the magistrate (Ramos). Largely, community service should be encouraged especially among young people in order to inculcate a sense of conscientiousness and work ethic, which are useful in shaping their personality. Among community members, participating in community service promotes a spirit of sociability and concern for all.

On the other hand, for law-breakers, the exercise should attend to their personalities where their background should be considered so that they can gain from it and reform. For the country as a whole, it brings people together to help raise those that have been struck by a disaster thereby promoting a spirit of patriotism. Works Cited Godhbole, Medha. “Importance of Community Service”. Buzzle.com. 2010. Web. 13 February 2013 Daniel, Mechal. “Role of Community Service In Our Society”.

Sooper Articles. 2010. Web. 13 February 2013 Arrington, Whitney. “Importance of Community Service”. The Storm. 2012. Web. Web. 13 February 2013 Pearce, Cindi. “Pros and Cons of Mandatory Community Service Projects Before Graduation From High School”. eHow. n.d. Web. Web. 13 February 2013 Ramos, Mario. “The Disadvantages of Community-based Corrections”. eHow. Web. 13 February 2013 http://www.ehow.com/info_8561384_disadvantages-communitybased-corrections.html