EXPERIENCING COMMUNITY SERVICE IN BELGRADE – NORMATIVE FRAMEWORK AND GENERAL IMPRESSIONS
ISKUSTVA U VEZI SA RADOM U JAVNOM INTERESU U BEOGRADU – NORMATIVNI OKVIR I OPŠTI UTISCI

Summary/Abstract: As a special alternative sanction, community service was introduced to the legal system of the Republic of Serbia in 2006, when current Criminal Code came into force. Two years later, a more detailed Regulation on the Enforcement of Community Service was adopted. Since then, relevant judiciary bodies and probation officers have been struggling to overcome numerous obstacles for its adequate and efficient practical implementation such as: initial suspicions and prejudice of the community, lack of detailed guidelines and supervision mechanism, limited financial resources and insufficient number of professional staff members. This paper represents an attempt to depict the evolution of community service in Serbia, to assess its positive and negative aspects, as well as to draw some conclusions and recommendations in order to improve its future application. In the introductory part, current normative framework dedicated to imposing and enforcement of community service in Serbia is presented. After that, statistical data showing the number of imposed community service sentences, types of criminal offences and actual modalities of community service enforcement are analyzed. Some parameters and factors showing actual practical aspects of community service application from the standpoint of probation officers as well as from the perspective of the offenders are also discussed, on the basis of two interviews with convicted persons serving community service in Belgrade as examples. Due to the fact that the majority of offenders who are serving community service are located in Belgrade, the analysis is primarily focused on this area. Finally, on the basis of these theoretical, statistical and practical quantitative and qualitative analyses, general conslusions on current state and tendencies regarding community service in Serbia are drawn and suggestions for the course of its future development are proposed.

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