Plans to help rehabilitate more criminals in the community must be shown to be effective in order to win public and judicial confidence, the Scottish Government has been warned.
MSPs have unanimously backed the general principles of an overhaul of services in an initial vote on the Community Justice Bill at Holyrood.
But Labour justice spokeswoman Elaine Murray said the legislation must be seen to take into account the views of the community as well as offenders.
She said: "The Bill does not refer to the interests and involvement of victims in particular, and the wider community more generally.
"Community justice alternatives to imprisonment will only be accepted by the general public, and by the judiciary while sentencing, if they have demonstrated to be effective in keeping the public safe and in changing individuals' offending behaviour."
She said the current criminal justice system is a "revolving door where people do not change their lives around".
"The problem with the alternative approaches is that they are not understood in the public eye," she said.
"They're not out there in the media and even the judiciary don't always know that alternatives are available that are actually more successful than just banging somebody up for a few weeks."
Ms Murray also raised concerns about the £614,000 set-up cost and £2.2 million annual running cost of Community Justice Scotland, the national body that will oversee the new system.
Community safety minister Paul Wheelhouse said he had noted the concerns of Holyrood's Justice Committee "that the outcomes for community justice should be framed more broadly so that re-offending rates are not the only measure of success".
He said the Government was working on a series of measures that would be used to plan services, assess progress and identify any issues.
These included a focus on "improved public understanding, participation and confidence in community sentencing".
He said: "It is important that individuals are held to account for the offences they have committed, but thereafter are supported to be responsible contributors to our communities.
"In demonstrating these better outcomes, the new model supports increased use of effective community sentences, the reduced use of short prison sentences and the improved reintegration of people who have offended back into their community."
Conservative justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell said: "The most controversial aspect of this legislation is the narrow definition of community justice."
She said the government has stripped out an earlier intention that the bill should "prevent offending".
She added: "This failure to make any reference to prevention, or indeed early intervention, represents a major change.
"Worryingly, the definition in the Bill was not consulted upon and appears to have come as a surprise to stakeholders and more importantly to the statutory partners."
Mr Wheelhouse said he recognised the definition of community justice in the Bill "could be strengthened" to include early intervention and the prevention of first-time offending.
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