This proposal introduces 4 changes to the community service penalty ban:

1. The community service penalty ban is extended to include assault on enforcers and caregivers tasked with providing emergency assistance or the actual enforcement of the rule of law. These individuals operate on the front line and cannot take a step back when faced with violence, as this could endanger the health and safety of others. Therefore, assaulting these individuals is penalized more heavily than comparable violence against others.
2. The law explicitly states that where the community service penalty ban applies, no fines can be imposed. This removes the uncertainty that exists in practice regarding this issue.
3. A hardship clause is introduced allowing the judge to deviate from the community service penalty ban in exceptional cases of recidivism. Currently, no community service can be imposed on individuals who are re-convicted for a similar offense within five years of completing a community service sentence. With this change, the judge is given the opportunity to impose a community service sentence in such situations within strict limits. This hardship clause only applies to recidivism for relatively minor offenses, such as stealing a bottle of cola. In the future, no deviations from the community service penalty ban will be allowed for serious violent and sexual offenses.
4. It will be possible to impose a community service sentence if it is combined with a wholly or partially conditional prison sentence. Currently, under the community service penalty ban, a community service sentence can only be combined with a wholly unconditional prison sentence. This change gives the judge more options to tailor the sentence to individual cases. In some instances, imposing a longer conditional prison sentence (for example, in the form of a restraining order) in combination with a community service sentence is more meaningful than an unconditional prison sentence of one day combined with a community service sentence. Naturally, imposing a bare community service sentence in these cases remains impossible.

Minister Van Weel: “Ambulance personnel being pelted with fireworks and police officers being hit with stones: it is absolutely unacceptable that these individuals face assault while they are concerned with the safety and health of us all. A community service sentence is not an appropriate punishment for offenders who have committed such cowardly offenses. The expansion of the community service penalty ban underscores the legal norm that assault on caregivers and enforcers is unacceptable.”

The current Penal Code states that for certain offenses, the judge may not impose a community service sentence, except in combination with an unconditional prison sentence. This is referred to as the community service penalty ban. The community service penalty ban applies, for example, when there is a crime for which a prison sentence of 6 years or more is applicable and the violence has led to a serious infringement on the physical integrity of the victim, such as arson, assault causing serious injury, and murder. The community service penalty ban was established because a community service sentence is not seen as an appropriate punishment for such offenses.