With no doubt, offenders should pay the price ( or be responsible for) for their illegal activities, no matter they are felonries or misdemeanants. Their disruptive behaviors harm the social stability, for examples, they might inflict economic damage or even destroy families. Therefore as a cost, deprivation of their liberty for them is necessary and fair enough. Never would culprits do self-examination until facing the restriction of freedom. In my opinion, some potential culprits would may actually commit a crime, if there is no imprisonment at all.
Obviously, Sending pretty criminals to work can be more effective though punishment. On the one side, forcing lawbreakers to labor, technically speaking is another way to deprive their liberty. That is because they have to work under judges’ instruction, which it means that they are not doing as they like and want ( or it means that their activities are strictly controlled). That is, even though they hate their work, they have to do it. So restriction on them is not less than incarceration in this sense. On the other side, the local community can profit (or benefit) from these criminal’s manual labor in the meantime. For instance, residents could buy something these people make for free, and enjoy the cleaning of streets that light lawbreakers have swept.
In a broaden perspective, using the identical criteria to treat different types of lawbreakers is unjustified. There should be distinction in my view. Besides, since pretty criminals are comparatively less dangerous to society, so