EVERY year, around 1,000 people receive a community order sentence in Northern Ireland and 116,000 hours of community work are performed.

This generally involves “environmental and conservation projects, painting and decorating, contributing to community clean-ups, working in animal shelters or assisting disabled people”, according to the Probation Board, which supervises most of these sentences, although anyone can nominate a “socially useful” project for it to assist.

Work must be “undertaken in communities where the individual has offended” to ensure a restorative effect.

Yet in half a century of living in Northern Ireland, I have never knowingly seen such work taking place, or heard anyone mention seeing it.

Cormac Moore: The parallel paths of Trump and Hitler can no longer be ignored

Phoebs Lyle: We have plans for a united Ireland, but what about World War Three?

To the best of my knowledge, everyone I have ever noticed cleaning graffiti or removing litter has been either a public employee or a local volunteer.

Of course, we do not make this work glaringly visible. There are no chain gangs in prison uniforms by the side of our roads – something I have seen once, in Florida.

You need to look carefully for clues in........

© The Irish News