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The courts in Wales and England handed down over 130,000 community sentence orders last year.

Those convicted were spared prison, but were expected to carry out a variety of activities in the community - including unpaid work in carpentry workshops to anger management courses and drug rehabilitation.

The Westminster government believes that it's an approach that benefits everyone by cutting re-offending rates.

In addition it keeps a cap on the prison population and pays back six million hours of free labour a year into local communities.

But is that message getting through?

John Munton is from the Cardiff East Neighbourhood Watch Association. He says his co-ordinators are not convinced that community sentences are delivering for their local neighbourhoods.

"They think it's a joke. They think that somebody will get a short little slap on the wrist and that's the end of it and they don't think that community sentencing sometime fits the crime. But that's because they don't know what is happening."

Is community sentencing a soft touch or hard labour? Eye on Wales investigates.