The first systematic use of community service occurred in Alameda County, California, in 1966.  The program was directed towards indigent women who violated traffic and parking laws.  Rather than sending the women to jail, which caused suffering for the women and their families, they were sentenced community service orders.  The orders not only avoided the suffering of the women and their families, but also provided a valuable service to the community and bypassed the cost of imprisonment.

Despite community service programs beginning in the United States, a more widespread establishment of community service orders occurred in England and Wales in 1973.  Even though the orders were meant to be experimental, the concept quickly gained interest throughout continental Europe.  Within a few years, tens of thousands of offenders throughout the United Kingdom were given probation with community service obligations, showing that community service could work on a large scale.

Some of the countries that first devised community service schemes were Switzerland, Germany, and Luxumbourg.  The scheme in Switzerland initially used community service for juveniles, while in Germany it was used as a penalty for fine default.  These differing applications show that community service has history as a method with a broad range of uses.

Additional community service schemes were subsequently formed between 1976 and 1995 in Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, France, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Czech Republic.  For all of these countries, the concept of community service was an appealing “alternative to the use of short term imprisonment as a response to increasing crime rates.”