Convicted criminals could be told to fill potholes and clean bins under plans the government is understood to be developing.
As first reported by the Sun on Sunday, the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is said to want to expand unpaid work, which she believes to be too lenient.
She is understood to want probation teams to work with councils, so that local authorities are able to assign jobs to offenders.
Private companies would also be able to employ those who are on community sentences.
Offenders would not be paid wages, but the money earned would be paid into a fund for victim's groups.
It comes as prisons across the country are struggling to deal with overcrowding after the number of offenders behind bars hit a new high.
A government source said: "With prisons so close to collapse, we are going to have to punish more offenders outside of prison.
"We need punishment to be more than just a soft option or a slap on the wrist. If we want to prove that crime doesn't pay, we need to get offenders working for free – with the salary they would have been paid going back to their victims."
They added this meant doing the jobs the public "really want them to do – not just scrubbing graffiti, but filling up potholes and cleaning the bins".
Writing for the Telegraph, Ms Mahmood, who describes herself as a "card-carrying member" of her party's "law and order wing", said that "tough community orders work."
