Community payback offenders make a difference
Nick Herbert saw first-hand today how offenders are spending their community sentences building a river path and improving local habitat.
Justice Minister Nick Herbert saw first-hand today how offenders are spending their community sentences building a river path and improving local habitat bordering the River Ise, in Kettering.
The project, carried out in conjunction with Kettering Borough Council and the Environment Agency, involves up to 10 offenders undertaking unpaid work to improve an area which was once overgrown with weeds and flooded regularly. The project will improve public accessibility to an area of land along the River Ise and contribute to a wider scheme to revive the river and its surrounding environment.
Justice Minister Nick Herbert said:
‘It’s important that people who commit crime face the consequences. Visible, unpaid and productive work requires offenders to pay back to the local community, helps to prevent re-offending and ensures that justice is seen to be done.
‘We are now making Community Payback more rigorous to ensure that offenders really do the work and that the public has confidence that the punishment is appropriate.
‘What I’ve seen in Kettering is the right kind of scheme that requires offenders to do physical work that will really make a difference to this area and benefit the community.’