The job, the kids and the car are among the top five excuses people use for community work no-shows in Tauranga.
In information released to the Bay of Plenty Times, the Department of Corrections listed employment conflicts, sickness, childcare issues, transport issues and being in custody or at a court appearance as the main reasons for local community work breaches.
As of August 4 this year, there were 1721 people serving a sentence of community work ordered by Tauranga District Court.
In the most recent figures available, 974 breaches were recorded at Tauranga Central, Tauranga South and Te Puke service centres in 2012.
Senior community work supervisor Eric Happe said breaches were fairly common in Tauranga.
"For someone not to turn up, it's probably 30 to 40 per cent.
"It could be the weather of the day, the kiwifruit season, whether they feel like getting up or not, what they were doing the night before."
In response to this, the local service has adopted a more flexible and "holistic" way of helping offenders complete their sentences - using a van to help pick up people with transport issues, adapting hours to fit in with work or family commitments, and offering life skills programmes when bad weather prevented any outside work.
"What we've started doing when they don't show up, is we contact them," Mr Happe said.
"Whether that's by text, or phone call. If we don't get them on the phone, we'll go and visit them." At the Tauranga South corrections centre yesterday, the Bay of Plenty Times spoke to a 24-year-old man who said his sentence was enough of a deterrent to put him off offending again.
"If we have work, we have to take time off and miss out on making money. If you can't go to work you don't have any money to pay rent."
The man had a few days to go on his 18-month sentence, which he deliberately dragged out for minimum impact on his work commitments.
He would have lost his job otherwise and was glad for the flexibility of hours and new programmes on offer, he said.
"You leave feeling like you've done something bad but also done something good and you're learning something that actually benefits what you do in the real world."
Corrections services deputy national commissioner Maria McDonald said the number of breaches did not necessarily reflect individual offenders sentenced to community work, as a person might have recorded multiple breaches during the year.
Community work, how much?
Offenders can be sentenced to between 40 and 400 hours of community work. While offenders are encouraged to complete their hours as quickly as possible, they can only work up to 10 hours a day, or up to 40 hours in any one week.
Offenders on community work sentences must complete 100 hours of their sentence every six months, or the remaining balance of their sentence.
While completing the hours, they will normally be able to continue with their regular employment.
An offender can also receive a remission of 10 per cent of their sentence if they demonstrated a good record of compliance, and this remission could be cancelled for failing to report for work.
- Department of Corrections