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Ester Blay Probation Journal 2008 55: 245 DOI: 10.1177/0264550508092813 The online version of this article can be found at: http://prb.sagepub.com/content/55/3/245

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Probation Journal
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Copyright 2008 NAPO Vol 55(3): 245258 DOI: 10.1177/0264550508092813 www.napo.org.uk http://prb.sagepub.com

Article

Work for the benet of the community as a criminal sanction in Spain1

Ester Blay, University of Girona
Abstract Work for the benet of the community as a criminal sanction was rst introduced into Spanish legislation by the 1995 criminal code. However, orders have not been implemented as expected and the gap between the written law and the law in action has been considerable. Regulation and implementation of orders pose serious problems, which reect more general trends of criminal policy and practice in Spain. After briey describing the regulation and implementation of work for the benet of the community orders, this article focuses on the main problems they present and discusses them in the context of wider policy issues. Keywords alternatives to prison, community penalties, criminal justice, penal
policy in Spain, unpaid work, restorative justice

Introduction
After a decade of academic and political debate, work for the benet of the community as a criminal sanction was rst introduced into Spanish legislation by the 1995 criminal code, the so called criminal code of democracy. Community service (CS) orders may currently be used as substitutes for prison sentences, as a response to the non-payment of nes and as penalties imposed directly for certain crimes. Despite this wide potential application, CS orders have not been implemented as expected and the gap between law as it is written and law in action has been considerable. In spite of recent reforms, the regulation and implementation of orders still poses serious uncertainties and problems, which reect more general trends, contradictions and shortcomings in criminal policy and practice in Spain. Although there is abundant legal literature on these orders (Blay, 2007a; Brandariz, 2002; Torres, 2006), little if any criminological research has been undertaken and ofcially published information is scarce and incomplete; consequently, many issues may only be raised as hypotheses requiring further research. This article is based on doctoral research conducted between 2003 and 2006, and attempts
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246 Probation Journal 55(3)

to go beyond the law as it is written and examine how the legislation is being implemented. The term CS (community service) is used throughout to refer to these court orders, as this term may be more familiar to the English reader in spite of recent changes. I shall start by briey describing the regulation and implementation of work for the benet of the community orders, and will then focus on the main problems they raise, attempting to relate them to those wider policy issues.

Regulation and implementation

CS imposes on the offender an obligation to undertake unpaid work in activities of general interest (article 49 of the criminal code). In practice, work is always undertaken in individual placements, either in local administrations (particularly city councils) or in non-prot organizations, and a great deal of it involves maintenance tasks. CS orders cannot be imposed without the offenders consent and his or her personal dignity has to be preserved throughout the implementation of the order. Each working day may comprise up to eight hours work, but in practice most consist of four hours, so as not to interfere with the work and family responsibilities of the offender. The association providing the placement, the correctional social services responsible for managing the orders, and the judge who oversees the rights of prison inmates and other offenders under supervision are charged with supervising the offender until the order is completed. Given the expectation preceding the introduction of the sanction in 1995, it is surprising how little debate, if any, there was in parliament at that time about the aims of CS orders (rehabilitation, retribution, reparation) and their function and severity within the overall penal system. This lack of debate has resulted in a certain confusion that is reected in various aspects of CS regulation. The 2003 and 2004 criminal code reforms2 have added to the confusion; in the rst place, they have considerably increased the length of orders and, secondly, they have introduced the possibility of offenders undertaking reparation work or otherwise helping victims of offences similar to the ones they committed. While longer orders seem to stress the punitive credentials of CS, working with victims has been interpreted both as a way of highlighting the symbolically reparative content of the order and its rehabilitative potential (Landrove, 2004: 5; Tllez, 2005: 131). CS orders may be imposed in three different ways: a) As substitutes for prison sentences. CS may substitute prison sentences of up to one year and, together with a ne, of up to two years. For each day of the prison sentence, the offender does one day of CS. b) As a punishment for non-payment of nes. Non-payment of nes may result either in deprivation of liberty (prison) or CS. Both proportional and day nes exist in regulation, but in practice most of those imposed are day nes; two unpaid days are equivalent to one day of work. c) As a direct penalty. For some offences in the criminal code, CS orders can be applied directly.3 As the consent of the offender is required, CS never gures as the sole penalty for an offence but is always established in
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regulation alongside another sanction (prison, nes or curfew orders). In this way, the judge may decide which of the two sanctions is more appropriate; if a CS order is chosen by the judge but is not accepted by the offender the other established sanction is imposed. The only exception to this are road safety offences, where the judge may choose between prison and a ne, and if he or she thinks the ne more appropriate and the offender consents, CS is imposed together with the ne.

CS orders in practice
Number of orders imposed
Table 1 shows the number of orders imposed by judges and the number of orders effectively complied with from 1996 to 2006; it also takes into account that orders are managed in all of Spain, except for Catalonia, by the General Directorate of Penal Institutions (DGIP), and in Catalonia by the Department of Justice of the autonomous regional government (SGMOMPA). Although the basic regulation is the same, details in the management and implementation of orders vary between both administrations, and such variations ultimately reect on the very different number of orders imposed in Catalonia.4 The limited practical relevance of CS orders is clearly seen if we take into account the number of prison sentences imposed, e.g. 155,532 prison sentences versus 7555 CS orders in 2005 (Cid, 2008:11) (see also Figure 1). But beyond this,

Table 1

Number of orders in all of Spain (19962006)

Total DGIP orders imposed 1 81 251 453 619 615 661 633 1739 4916 n.a. orders completed 0 21 (25.9%) 84 (33.4%) 193 (42.6%) 252 (40.7%) 333 (54.1%) 305 (46.1%) 432 (52.4%) 4705 (27%) n.a. n.a. SGMOMPA orders imposed n.a. 77 184 281 306 244 235 255 615 2639 2966 orders completed n.a. n.a. 113 (61.4%) 155 (55.1%) 176 (57.5%) 167 (68.4%) 147 (62.5%) 127 (49.8%) 199 (32.3%) 445 (16.8%) 1028 (34.6%)

orders imposed 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 1 158 435 734 925 859 896 888 2354 7555 n.a.

orders completed not available n.a. 197 (45.2%) 348 (47.4%) 428 (46.2%) 500 (58.2%) 452 (50.4%) 459 (51.6%) 669 (28.4%) n.a. n.a.

Source: Data from DGIP , 2004: 286; Fransoy, 2005: 57, Fransoy, 2006: 7; El Pas (5/03/2006: 30); and the Department of Justice of the Government of Catalonia.
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248 Probation Journal 55(3)

180,000

160,000

140,000

120,000

100,000 Prison CS 80,000

60,000

40,000

20,000

0 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Figure 1

Prison orders versus CS orders (19962006)

Source: Cid, 2008: 11 and Data from DGIP , 2004: 286; Fransoy, 2005: 57, Fransoy, 2006: 7; El Pas, 2006: 30; and the Department of Justice of the Government of Catalonia.

attention needs to be paid to two other issues. First, a considerable increase may be observed in the number of orders imposed in 2004 and particularly in 2005, both in absolute terms and in relation to the number of prison sentences, with one CS order being imposed for every 533 prison sentences in 1997 and one order for every 20 prison sentences in 2005. This is mainly due to the impact of the legal reforms introduced in the criminal code in 2003 and 2004, which considerably expanded the scope of CS. Second, there is a surprisingly small percentage of orders effectively complied with each year in relation to those imposed; if we focus on the Catalan data (SGMOMPA) we can further observe that this percentage decreases signicantly in 2004/2005 and slowly recovers in 2006. The lack of detail in the available data means that it fails to explain the reasons for this high rate of non-compliance (death of the offender, the imposition of a prison sentence, delays in management or any other factor), so it is difcult to reach any rm conclusion. However, the difference between the number of orders imposed and the number of completed orders may be explained by the fact that the 20032004 legal reforms which increased the application scope for CS orders were not accompanied by the provision of the material and personal resources needed to implement them. Neither the Spanish nor the Catalan correctional services were ready in terms of personnel and resources needed to face the increase in the number of orders produced after 2004, so it may be deduced that a considerable number of orders were not carried out in time, and some of them may have expired.
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CS as punishment for crimes related to road safety and for family and gender violence
Around 43 per cent of the orders imposed every year are a response to gender and family violence, 42 per cent are in response to drink driving, and the rest to various other offences (Fransoy, 2006: 7). Domestic violence and road safety are, thus, the two main types of crimes for which CS orders are used, and it is very likely that this pattern will continue in the future, perhaps with a larger proportion of orders being used to punish crimes related to road safety. Therefore, I shall now briey focus on these two typical uses for CS orders. Drink driving has since 2003 been punished with either prison or a ne plus CS; a legal reform in 2007 introduced various administrative trafc offences in the criminal code as crimes punishable with either a prison sentence or a ne plus a CS order (driving over the speed limit, driving without a licence and creating risks for other road users). It is to be expected that this reform will greatly increase the overall number of CS orders being imposed, and that those responding to road safety crimes will probably represent a larger proportion of all CS orders. The criminal code specically mentions the possibility of relating the work to be undertaken by the offender to reparation, support or assistance to victims of crimes of the same nature as that committed by the offender. In practice, Catalan correctional services have been making an effort, particularly with drink drivers, to relate their work to road accident assistance and the physical rehabilitation of victims, although the small number of placements available has limited this endeavour. Regarding family violence, CS orders have been established since the 2003 2004 legal reforms as the main alternative sanction for the less serious forms of domestic and gender violence.6 In this line, CS orders are used as direct penalties for these offences (so the judge may choose between prison and CS) and as the only form of prison substitute for these crimes, thereby excluding nes, which may be used to substitute any other prison sentence. In practice, judges apply CS orders to a signicant extent to the less serious instances of this form of violence (about 18% of all cases of spouse-on-spouse violence are punished with CS orders, according to Cid et al., ongoing research). The use of CS orders, instead of other alternative sanctions, for this kind of crime may be surprising to the nonSpanish reader so I will attempt to provide an explanation. Violence against family members and particularly violence against women has been a central issue in Spanish penal politics and the object of much recent legal and administrative activity. Prison sentences for these offences have increased in severity over time, particularly as a result of the 2003 and 2004 reforms (Larrauri, 2007: 86). The increase has been such that their proportionality has been questioned by several judges, and the matter has reached the constitutional court. This court has observed that, as the criminal code stipulates, CS orders may be imposed in the less serious cases, thus preserving the proportionality of the overall established punishment and rendering it admissible from a constitutional perspective (Constitutional Court Decrees 233/2004 and 332/2005). It might be, therefore, that the presence of CS orders legitimates an increase in the severity of prison sentences. The use, alongside prison, of a less severe sanction to punish these
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250 Probation Journal 55(3)

crimes appears to be a response to the need to maintain proportionality at a time of overall punitive ination. What is perhaps surprising is the specic choice of CS orders, thus ruling out treatment in the community, nes or home detention. The choice of CS orders to punish these crimes is not based on comparative evidence of their effectiveness in terms of rehabilitation of family violence offenders (Medina, 2005: 199) or any other positive consideration, but seems to be the result of having discarded every other alternative. As established in the criminal code, treatment in the community may only be imposed when a prison sentence is suspended or substituted, but never directly as a punishment in itself. This situation could perhaps be explained by the resistance to this measure from certain mass media, and some professional and feminist groups (Medina, 2005: 204). The exclusion of nes and home detention as alternatives to prison for family violence in the criminal code corresponds to the advice given by the parliamentary commission on domestic violence to rule out those sanctions which might negatively affect victims and their families. Fines are thus excluded because they are presumed to damage the material well-being of the family of the offender, as are home detention orders because they imply offenders sharing living space with victims. With all the aforementioned possibilities discarded, CS is left as the only viable and remaining alternative to prison. As can be seen, then, a double logic of proportionality and regard for victims lies behind the relevance of CS as a sanction for gender and domestic violence.

Change in the prole of offenders

Although no accurate data is available, ofcials in the correctional social services have observed that, generally speaking, offenders punished with CS orders after 2004, particularly those imposed for drink driving and family violence, are not for the most part affected by poverty and/or social exclusion, but are more representative of wider sections of society (Rosala de la Cruz, personal communication). Further research needs to be done to conrm this change, study its causes and evaluate its possible impact on the management and compliance of orders, as well as to show the net widening effect it may be reecting. What is more surprising, however, is the pattern behind the sentencing of females to CS orders. Between 1996 and 2003 females represented 14.7 per cent of all individuals receiving CS orders (Departament de Justcia, 2003: 89). In 2006 women represented only 9.17 per cent of all offenders sentenced to CS orders, but 19.7 per cent of offenders sentenced to CS for family violence. This also means that the proportion of women over men receiving CS orders for drink driving is much lower. It may then be ascertained that the impact of legal reforms has meant a reduction in the overall rate of female offenders sentenced to CS for all but family violence offences. Before a reasonable hypothesis can be presented, further research is needed to ascertain if female rates of incarceration for these same offences have experienced a parallel increase and if the patterns for sentencing men and women to prison and CS orders for family violence somehow differ. At this stage one can
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only speculate as to the reasons for this but the differential sentencing of women to community service (Hedderman and Gelsthorpe, 1997; McIvor, 1998) and explanations put forward by feminist scholars concerning the criminalization of women in the context of spouse-on-spouse violence need to be taken into account (Osthoff, 2002: 15223).

Can CS orders reduce imprisonment?

Although the emphasis varies across countries and over time, one of the most widespread rationales for the introduction of CS-type sanctions has been the reduction of prison use, particularly of short-term prison sentences. This is also true for Spain. Imprisonment rates in Spain are high when compared to other European countries. Figure 1 shows the number of prison sentences and the number of CS orders imposed in the period between 1996 and 2006.7 For the majority of the time since the introduction of CS orders, the number of orders increased over the same period but at a slower rate than did prison sentences. There was a reduction in the number of prison sentences for 2006, although this reduction has not meant a smaller prison population because of an increase in length of sentences (Cid, 2008), and cannot in my opinion be ascribed to the increase of CS orders imposed. This can be explained by examining the various functions that CS orders serve. a) CS orders as a response to non-payment of nes. The most frequently used sanction for unpaid nes is deprivation of liberty, mostly in prison, imposed in 56.5 per cent of cases. In the remaining cases this deprivation of liberty is either suspended (40.5%) or, in far fewer occasions, home arrest is used as a sanction (2%). CS has thus been used very sparingly to prevent individuals being sent to prison for ne default: around a mere 1 per cent of cases (Cid and Larrauri, 2002: 889). b) CS orders as substitutes for prison sentences. In principle, given the twostep process whereby a prison sentence is rst imposed and only afterwards is the decision to substitute it taken, every time a prison sentence is substituted a prison entry is avoided. However, a note of caution needs to be sounded about this. To begin with, substitutive CS orders only prevent prison use when they are satisfactorily completed, because non-compliance leads to the substitution being revoked, and thus to imprisonment. Second, only one-year and, exceptionally, two-year prison sentences may be substituted (art. 88 cc). This limit equals and sometimes surpasses the longest sentence that can be substituted in comparative law. However, the criminal code punishes a great number of the most common offences (non-violent property and drug trafcking offences) with prison sentences of a minimum of three or more years. This hinders the effectiveness of substitution as a means of reducing prison use, simply because prison sentences for the most frequently committed non-violent crimes cannot be substituted (Cid, 1999: 131). In
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252 Probation Journal 55(3)

practice, only around 10 per cent of orders that are imposed are substitutes for prison sentences (Rosala de la Cruz, personal communication). A third observation is that, even when it is legally possible, in practice judges do not often resort to the substitution mechanism (Cid and Larrauri, 2002: 723, 83, 1067). This has been attributed primarily to ideological reasons, rather than to any defect in regulation. c) CS orders imposed directly for certain offences in the criminal code. When sentencing for certain imprisonable offences, the judge may choose between prison and a CS order. If the judge imposes a CS order, a prison sentence is avoided. Since here the response to non-compliance is a ne, the possibility of imprisonment is further removed. Given that in practice most CS orders are direct penalties, they may be said to avoid, for these crimes, the use of prison. Nevertheless, two observations need to be made. In the rst place, some imprisonable offences now punished with CS were misdemeanours not punishable by prison before the 20032004 reforms. In the second place, most CS orders have been introduced in legislation taking the place of either nes, a less severe alternative to prison, or comparatively much shorter weekend arrest orders. Therefore, in one sense CS orders may be said to be avoiding prison use, but we also have to take into account that they have both accompanied and themselves marked an increase in the overall penal response. These conclusions correspond in general terms with research ndings elsewhere. For instance, CS orders seem to a large extent to be replacing nes and suspended sentences in England (Ashworth, 2001: 7071) while in Holland about 40 per cent of them have been found to have a net widening effect or to displace the use of less severe alternatives to prison (Tak, 2001: 161). In the next section I shall examine the main problems faced in the implementation of orders, and look at how they reect wider issues and hinder the use of CS.

Problems of implementation
Absence of a specialized branch of the public administration responsible for implementing orders
The absence of an administrative structure tasked with the execution of community sentences, such as with the National Probation Service in England and Wales, has long been identied in Spain as one of the factors that hinders the use of these sanctions (Cid, 1997). At present, the management of CS orders is undertaken by correctional social services and only in Catalonia can one nd an embryonic branch in the justice department specializing in community sentences. This structure, albeit limited, has survived changes in government and has developed into a growing group of professionals and set of established practices. This has promoted greater condence among judges about orders being effectively carried
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out and sufciently supervised, and has led to a much greater number of orders in Catalonia than in any other part of Spain. Both Catalan and Spanish ofcials point to the excessive workload and the lengthy waiting lists for the management of orders (it might take up to one year for an offender to start working after he or she has been sentenced, El Pais 5 March 2006: 30), particularly since the 2003 reforms which have resulted in a greater number of orders, some of them very lengthy, were imposed.

Shortage of placements
Scarcity of placements has often been alluded to, both in academic and judicial circles, to justify why CS orders are not imposed more frequently. However, this idea is contradicted by closer examination of the data. In fact, until 2004 available placements far outnumbered the orders imposed, with 1312 more placements than orders in 1998 and 2597 more in 2004 (DGIP , 2004: 286). It should be said, though, that some placements may not have tted the needs of offenders in terms of their geographic and/or time distribution. From 2004 onwards the number of orders imposed and the number of available placements almost coincide (with 4938 placements for 4916 orders in 2005; DGIP , 2004: 286), and what for the past decade has been a rhetorical response to justify non-imposition of orders, with no empirical basis, may now be turning into a real obstacle to the implementation of sentences. This difculty may be explained by various factors. In the rst place the possibility of introducing group placements, which would allow for the management of greater numbers of orders, has not surfaced in political or academic debate. This is perhaps due to the fact that group placements are associated in the popular imagination with forced labour undertaken by political prisoners during the Franco dictatorship. Second, the rehabilitative potential of orders is linked in academic literature, albeit without empirical foundation, to individual placements and personal tasks (Brandariz, 2002). Finally, the scarcity of placements may also be due to the limited development of voluntary associations in Spain, compared to other Western societies. This may also help to explain why CS is more frequently used in Catalonia, a region that is home to a larger number of these associations than most of the rest of Spain (Subirats, 1999: 26). Efforts are being made by both the Spanish and Catalan governments to increase the number of placements available, particularly through agreements with local councils, and the number of placements is now growing at a steady pace.8

A privatized punishment?
Each year, more than 50 per cent of the hours of community service work are completed in private associations. This raises general issues about the element of privatization present in the implementation of orders. Compared to Great Britain, the debate in Spain about privatization within the criminal justice system is in its very early stages. However, it may be that the mixed publicprivate individual
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254 Probation Journal 55(3)

placement model that is being followed, with direct supervision of offenders often being done by individuals not linked to the criminal justice system or any public administration, may be affecting the credibility of the sanction and the judiciarys condence in it, and thus may be hindering its implementation.

Length of orders
This is perhaps the most problematic aspect of the regulation and renders the management of orders extremely difcult. The criminal code establishes that orders may last anything between one and 180 days of work. It also establishes that these orders ought to be completed within a maximum of one year (arts. 33 and 40 of the criminal code). Finally, the code establishes that prison sentences of up to one year, and exceptionally two years, may be substituted by CS orders and that one day of prison is to be substituted by one day of work (arts. 53 and 88 of the criminal code). This regulation poses both contradictions and problems of implementation. The 2003 legal reforms extended the length of CS orders from a maximum of 384 hours established in 1995 to the present 180 days, which could mean up to 1440 hours of work. These 1440 hours far exceed the most extended maximum in European countries, which oscillates between the French 210 hours and the British 300 hours of work. This substantial increase seems to have been a response to a desire to reinforce the credibility of CS orders and to make them suitable for their newly acquired function as prison substitutes and as direct penalties for some crimes. Perhaps the most serious doubt posed by the new regulation is determining whether the limit of 180 days can ever be surpassed or if, given the conversion rates between prison and CS (one day of prison for one day of work), and given the fact that prison sentences of up to one year and exceptionally two years may be substituted by CS orders, judges may impose CS orders of up to 365 or even 730 days of work. This contradiction in the criminal code regulation has not been resolved by judges or policy makers, and although in practice the average sentence consists of 62 days of work (which the administration translates into 248 hours), some sentences have been passed imposing orders of up to 730 days of work, which could legally comprise up to 5640 working hours but which correctional social services have benevolently and pragmatically translated into 2820 hours of work (four working hours for each day). Predictably, correctional social service ofcers have difculty managing sentences of such length; and claim that more than 100 days or 400 hours of work start to pose serious practical difculties (Juanjo Subero, personal communication). Further problems arise because the length of the orders are legally established in terms of days, not hours, of work. A judge determines the number of days of work according to legal criteria, and the correctional social services then determine how many hours each working day will comprise, taking into account the labour and family responsibilities of the offender, not criminal law criteria. Thus, correctional social services not only manage sentences and decide over what period of time they have to be served, but to a large extent determine the punitive magnitude of CS orders by xing the amount of hours to be worked per day
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according to social and personal criteria. It might be the case, then, that given the same offence, an employed offender with family responsibilities has to work the same number of days but half the hours as an unemployed offender without family responsibilities.9 This situation poses problems in relation to the principle of equality of treatment, proportionality with the offence and the constitutional distribution of powers between the judiciary and the executive. So far none of these problems has been addressed in public debate (Blay, 2005: 5).

Concluding remarks
Recent legislation has created considerable scope for the implementation of CS orders. However, in practice these orders do not have a particularly good track record, either in terms of the number of orders imposed, their ability to replace prison sentences, or their completion rate. There is a large difference between the legal scope for their application and their actual use, and it would appear that expectations have not been met in terms of their relevance in the criminal justice system. The reasons behind this underperformance are manifold, but three in particular ought to be mentioned. In the rst place, confusion surrounds the aims of orders, with legislation emphasizing both their punitive content and their reparative and rehabilitative potential. This resonates with the initial confusion in England around the aims of CS orders (Worrall, 1997: 9091). But more specically it also reects the changing arena of penal politics in Spain, where a nominal commitment to rehabilitation coexists with a growing penal pressure that has led to tougher measures and penal ination (Medina, 2006: 188, 197). In practice, this confusion hinders the use of orders and poses sometimes insurmountable difculties in their management. Second, reecting a wider trend in Spanish penal policy implementation (Medina, 2006: 190), correctional social services charged with the management and supervision of orders are too underfunded and understaffed to successfully face the challenge of managing an ever-increasing number of CS orders. Budgetary demands have to compete with ambitious prison building programmes (e.g. the Catalan governments 20042010 plan for prison construction); however, some progress is being made, albeit modestly, and there are certain grounds for optimism, exemplied in the increasing number of ofcers in the correctional social services (a 30% increase in the number of ofcers in Catalonia during 2006, Departament de Justcia, 2007: 141) and the recent improvement in the ratio of orders that have been complied with (see 2006 data in Table 1 in this article). Third, almost from the outset of the introduction of CS into Spanish legislation, academics and judges have talked and written about the ineffectiveness of the sanction (Blay, 2007b). More than 10 years later, this nothing works (and nothing will work) discourse has, if it is possible, extended its inuence. Although not based on research ndings, which in fact sometimes contradict it, this idea has penetrated deep into the culture of the judiciary and legal literature, and hindered the application of CS orders.
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The implementation of CS orders in Spain is a fertile ground for the study of their possible net widening effects, the process and consequences of privatization, issues raised by gender and punishment, and the inuence of the judiciarys thinking on decision making and the conguration of the penal system; further research needs to be undertaken in these directions.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Dr Jordi Vidal and Dr Elena Larrauri for revising the rst draft of this work; their aid and criticisms have certainly improved it. I would also like to thank Pius Fransoy, Juanjo Subero and Rosala de la Cruz, from the Catalan Justice Department, for their helpfulness and for the data provided during my research. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers, the editorial board and Lawrence Burke, editor of this journal, for their comments on an earlier version of this article, which undoubtedly have improved it. Of course, any mistakes are entirely my own. This article has been written within the framework of the research project Credibility of alternative sanctions, funded by the Ministry of Education and Science (SEJ200508955-C0201/JURI) and the research group in criminology applied to penology (Consolidated Research Group, SGR 00824).

Notes
1 Reforms affecting the regulation of CS orders in the criminal code are contained in various laws passed both under the former conservative and the current socialist governments (organic laws 11/2003, 15/2003, 1/2004 and 15/2007). 2 Reforms affecting the regulation of CS orders in the criminal code are contained in various laws passed both under the former conservative and the current socialist governments (organic laws 11/2003, 15/2003, 1/2004 and 15/2007). 3 Those crimes are: art. 153 cc: bodily harm and physical or psychological ill treatment of female partner, former partner or family member (gender violence, domestic violence); 171.4 cc: threats to female partner or former partner (gender violence); 171.5 cc: minor threats using weapon to a family member (domestic violence); 172.2 cc: coercion of female partner or former partner (gender violence); for all the previous felonies, the judge may choose between imposing a prison sentence or a CS order; 244.1 cc: car theft, when the car is returned (the judge may choose between a ne and a CS order); 379 cc: driving over the speed limit and drink driving; 384 cc: driving without a licence; 385 cc: creating risks to road safety (for all road safety crimes, the judge may choose between prison and ne plus a CS order). Misdemeanours: art. 618 cc minor non-payment of family pensions (choice between ne and CS; previously not in the cc); 620 cc minor threats, slanderous allegations or humiliation of family member (domestic violence) (choice between curfew/home arrest order or CS); 626 cc mistreatment of buildings (choice between ne or CS order); 632 cc harm to endangered ora and ill treatment of animals (choice between ne or CS order). 4 Spain is divided into 17 autonomous territories with varying degrees of autonomy. Catalonia is the only one of these territories which has been empowered with the management of prisons and other community sanctions. In the rest of Spain, prisons and community sentences are managed by the Ministry of Interior, through the General Directorate of Prison Institutions. 5 Until November 2004.
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6 The 2004 criminal code reform increased the punishment for various crimes (injuries, threats and non-habitual battering, among others) when they are committed against women who are, or have been, spouses, or have held an analogous relationship with the offender, thus making them more severe than when they are committed against any other family member or any other individual. They are designated with the term gender violence (see Larrauri, 2007 for a comment on such legislation). 7 The table includes all individual imprisonment orders imposed, so if more than one imprisonment order is imposed upon one individual in the same or a different sentence, each of these orders is reckoned separately. It also includes orders which have been suspended. 8 See, for example, http://www.icacordoba.com/archivos/noticias/ PLAZAS%20BENEFICIO%20A% 20COMUNIDAD.pdf or http://www.icaib.org/ca/ public/Noticias/Plazas%20Trabajos.pdf 9 It ought to be pointed out that this is a legal possibility, but according to our interviews with ofcials in the Catalan administration, all working days are turned into four hour days, in part because these are easier to manage than eight hour days.

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Ester Blay lectures on penology and other related criminal justice system subjects in the Departament de Dret Pblic, Facultat de Dret, Campus Montilivi, University of Girona s/n, Girona 17071, Spain. Email: ester.blay@ udg.edu

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