Making Volunteering a Punishment: Why or why not?

(Photo taken from MISFITS)


You know the movie scene: A guy crashes a car and then is sentenced to community service. He wears an orange jumpsuit and picks up litter on the side of the road (because of course picking up litter is the only volunteer opportunity ever available.)


Eric Lu from Time Magazine considers the question, however, of: “Why should community service even be a form of punishment?”

The principle behind using community service as punishment is that people can do some good in their community and see the error of their ways. However, Mr. Lu argues that this method actually stigmatizes volunteerism as a whole. “It broadcasts an image of community work as unpleasant and to be avoided – something that in fact must be compelled. By making service a lesser and often laughable form of punishment, we utterly degrade it.”

Do you think this is true? Or do you think that community service as a form of “punishment” has its virtues? Should community service continue to be used a “get out of jail” card?