2005 Federal Sentencing Guidelines
Chapter 8 - PART B - REMEDYING HARM FROM CRIMINAL CONDUCT,
AND EFFECTIVE COMPLIANCE AND ETHICS PROGRAM
§8B1.3. Community Service -
Organizations (Policy Statement)
Community service may be ordered as a condition of probation where such community
service is reasonably designed to repair the harm caused by the offense.
Commentary
Background: An organization
can perform community service only by employing its resources or paying its
employees or others to do so. Consequently, an order that an organization perform
community service is essentially an indirect monetary sanction, and therefore
generally less desirable than a direct monetary sanction. However, where the
convicted organization possesses knowledge, facilities, or skills that uniquely
qualify it to repair damage caused by the offense, community service directed
at repairing damage may provide an efficient means of remedying harm caused.
In the past, some forms of community service imposed on organizations have
not been related to the purposes of sentencing. Requiring a defendant to endow
a chair at a university or to contribute to a local charity would not be consistent
with this section unless such community service provided a means for preventive
or corrective action directly related to the offense and therefore served one
of the purposes of sentencing set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).
Historical Note: Effective
November 1, 1991 (see Appendix
C, amendment 422).