“Any Alternative Is Great If I’m Incarcerated”: A Case Study of Court-Ordered Community Service in Los Angeles County

• Author: Lucero Herrera,Noah D. Zatz,Melanie Sonsteng-Person,Tia koonse
• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0093854820923373
• Subject Matter: Articles

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2021, Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2021, 32 –53.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854820923373

Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions

© 2020 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

32

“ANY ALTERNATIVE IS GREAT

IF I’M INCARCERATED”

A Case Study of Court-Ordered Community

Service in Los Angeles County

MELANIE SONSTENG-PERSON

LUCERO HERRERA

TIA KOONSE

NOAH D. ZATZ

University of California, Los Angeles

California courts increasingly order community service for those convicted of nonviolent and minor misdemeanors or infrac-

tions, assigning unpaid work to be performed. While court-ordered community service has been used as an alternative to

incarceration and the payment of fines, little is known about the monetary and personal costs for those completing it. A case

study design is used to examine court-ordered community service performed in Southeast Los Angeles. Data were gathered

from a quantitative dataset of 541 court files of those assigned to community service and 32 in-depth interviews with attor-

neys and court-ordered community service workers. While the quantitative data and Attorney interviews found that negative

outcomes of community service can drive community service workers deeper into debt and result in new warrants that place

defendants at risk for rearrest, individuals that completed community service appreciated the opportunity to pay off their

criminal justice debts and stay out of jail.

Keywords: mass incarceration; criminal justice; alternatives to incarceration; mixed methods; community service; alterna-

tive sanctions; monetary sanctions; legal financial obligations

State and federal prisons and municipal jails incarcerate millions of people of color and

poor people. In 2016, state and federal prisons held 1.5-million incarcerated persons

(Carson, 2018); in county and city jails, another 740,700 incarcerated individuals were held

AUTHORS’ NOTE: The authors would like to thank the public defenders and individuals completing com-

munity service who shared their time and experiences with us. We are grateful for the very helpful comments

from the anonymous reviewers and the editor. This work was supported by the Arnold Ventures, the Open

Society Foundations, and the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. The analyses presented

here are the authors’ own and do not necessarily express the views of any funder. Correspondence concern-

ing this article should be addressed to Melanie Sonsteng-Person, Department of Social Welfare, University

of California, Los Angeles, 3250 Public Affairs Building, Box 951656, Los Angeles, CA 90095; e-mail:

masonsteng@ucla.edu.

923373CJBXXX10.1177/0093854820923373Criminal Justice and BehaviorSonsteng-Person et al. / Any Alternative Is Great If I’m Incarcerated

research-article2020

Sonsteng-Person et al. / ANY ALTERNATIVE IS GREAT IF I’M INCARCERATED 33

at a single day in midyear (Zeng, 2018). California reported the second highest incarcerated

population, at 129,593 (McDonnell, 2016). Los Angeles County alone incarcerated 16,163

per day in 2016 (McDonnell, 2016), making it one of the largest jail systems in the United

States (Vera Institute of Justice, 2011). People who are unemployed and people of color

have more frequent contact with the criminal justice system. Between 2012 and 2017, 43%

of individuals arrested in Los Angeles were unemployed, the majority of whom were Latinx

(43.9%) or Black (32.6%) (Zavala et al., 2018). Los Angeles County as a whole has a popu-

lation that is 49% Hispanic or Latinx, 26% White, 15% Asian, and 9% Black (U.S. Census

Bureau, 2018). Scholars and lawmakers across the country have extensively studied the

disparate impacts and racialized harms of mass incarceration, and the various alternatives.

Alternatives to incarceration enjoy wide appeal as they are framed as a humane and less

costly form of rehabilitation (Umbreit, 1981). However, recent research on the impact of

alternatives, such as probation and monetary sanctions, found that they can increase the

number of people under criminal justice control and perpetuate social inequities among

poorer communities of color (Harris et al., 2010; Western, 2016). A related alternative is

court-ordered community service. Court-ordered community service is an alternative sanc-

tion for people convicted of nonviolent and minor offenses who are ordered in criminal

court and traffic court to perform unpaid work at nonprofit organizations and government

agencies instead of serving jail time or paying fines (Umbreit, 1981). Although commonly

used in Los Angeles County (Zatz et al., 2016), little research has examined the impact of

court-ordered community service on individuals completing it (henceforth Community

Service Workers). This study seeks to fill this knowledge gap by addressing the following

questions: Who gets sentenced to court-ordered community service? Why are individuals

completing or not completing court-ordered community service? and How do participants

view the monetary and social costs of court-ordered community service in lieu of jail time

and fees and fines?

LITERATURE REVIEW

Court orders to perform community service arise in traffic and criminal court as alterna-

tives to jail time or court debt. Consequences for failing to complete community service

ordered by a criminal court include probation revocation, a bench warrant, being sent to

debt collection, or conversion of community service to jail time. Consequences in traffic

court also include a bench warrant, as well as a new charge of failure to pay, debt collection,

or driver’s license suspension (Herrera et al., 2019). Although court-ordered community

service is intended as an alternative to incarceration and/or court debt, it can impede this

goal by placing undue hardship on individuals with a limited income (Bender et al., 2015).

In Los Angeles County, orders to perform community service in lieu of jail occur gen-

erally as a condition of probation, for a wide range of misdemeanors including domestic

violence, looting during an emergency (up to 240 hours), vandalism (up to 400 hours),

graffiti on public buildings (up to 600 hours), graffiti on a freeway (up to 480 hours), and

drug possession (Cal. Penal Code §§ 1203.097, 463, 594.6, 640.5, 640.8, 1210.1). In a

few graffiti statutes, judges are required to mandate community service, either as a stand-

alone component of the sentence or as a condition of probation (e.g., Cal. Penal Code §§

594, 640.5[b]). Community service is performed at government entities like transporta-

tion and parks departments, as well as nonprofits like Goodwill, churches, and fraternal