Change and continuity – community service as an alternative to prison in Bosnia

A recent initiative, supported by the UK embassy* in Bosnia, has advanced the development of community service as an alternative to serving time in prison. The possibility was envisaged in a package of laws introduced under international supervision in 2003, but prior to the current initiative, there was no framework for delivery.

The focus of the initiative is to place those who might otherwise have received a sentence of up to one year in prison into workplaces which serve a recognised public good (utility firms or care work, for example). This follows recent developments in Serbia and Croatia, and is seen as part of aligning with practices elsewhere in Europe. Although a recent feature in these former Yugoslav states, it has a degree of resonance with old Yugoslav punishment practices.

In the workers’ society, the ‘sole corrective’ for the criminal lay in the reformative potential of labour. Marx’s claim in response to the workers of Gotha was reflected many years later in the Yugoslavian prison system. Large scale industrial and agricultural units were integrated into prisons, ensuring that the prisoners remained part of the workforce and part of society. Their work was conceived of as a form of therapy and social re-education.

But Bosnia today is far from the workers’ society and closer to the workless society. Here, there is massive unemployment, estimated at around 40%, but difficult to gauge due to the unknown size of the informal economy.

So, absent the logic of preparing workers for reintegration into the job market, what does the community service programme offer?

A fitting use of prisons

One of many possible logics of imprisonment is the containment of those offenders who pose a risk to society. How great the proportion of inmates that fall into this class is a matter for debate, but in a system such as Bosnia’s, without a well-developed set of alternatives, it is likely that imprisonment will extend beyond that core.

Harm reduction

If the rationale of containment does not apply, then the restrictive environment of the prison may not be the best way to achieve other objectives (punishing a wrong, working towards rehabilitation). Given a set of alternatives, and assuming that pure vengeance is not the motivating factor, it makes sense to choose the least harmful. A number of features of prison, including the separation from positive relationships with family and community members, the possibility of cultivating negative influences, and the psychological stress of living day to day in an unpredictable environment suggest that where alternatives exist, prison should be used most sparingly.

Reducing over-crowding

Harm can be reduced not only for those who are spared imprisonment, but those who are detained. By diverting some away from prison, the resources of the system are taxed less and might be used more effectively. A number of prisons in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the scheme has been developed, have chronic problems with overcrowding.

Reparation

The act of working for the community is an indirect way of offering reparation for a wrong, rebranded elsewhere and in different senses as ‘payback’.

Savings

Perhaps one of the most dramatic aspects of the presentation of the scheme is the financial data. Across more than 80 sentences, 325 months of imprisonment was converted into 2,450 days of community service, with a saving of roughly €475,000. Bearing in mind these results were mainly based on two cantons, the extension of the scheme would suggest far greater savings.

Limits to social work content

The team behind delivery and reporting recognised that the scheme is predominantly work-based, and has very little in terms of social work interventions with participants. Nonetheless, that kind of support is not something they would necessarily receive in the context of a short custodial sentence. Still, certain elements of the vision of the relationship between those sentenced to community service and those who organise and oversee their work suggests a supportive role as envisaged in criminal justice social work and probation services elsewhere.

On the whole, in the context of a struggling and overcrowded prison system, and a country with limited resources, finding alternatives that are less harmful and less expensive makes sense on a number of levels.

*Delivery and reporting on the scheme by LucidLinx, a Sarajevo-based consultancy firm.