The controversial issue about outlawer people debate about is does it better for rule breaker to go straight to the jail regardless the scale of the crime than doing someting usefull for others.
If someone who break the law and immediately sent to the prison, it can make people feel more safe, because they sure the criminals are far away from them. Also, the procedur are simple and do not need a lot of cops to deal with. The disadvantages of this approach is it require some money to feed them while they stay in the prison.
On the other hand, for people who think that it is better for the rule breaker to just obligate them to give some contribution to local community it is very understandable. Because it doesn’t spend a peny to sent them to the prison. Even they actually help someone or do something more useful for the community. The worrying part is we need to make sure that they would not doing another criminals activity that can put people in danger. To do that, some cops can acompany the criminals while doing the punishment, but of course it takes the officer time and longer procedure to determine what kind of work would the criminals do,
In my personal opinion, I would reather to make a minor lawbreaker contribute to the community. It because it cheap and they really do something usefull instead of just standing in a prison. Even thought it has to be under several cops eyesight to make sure they doing it right.