A section of people in the society, argue that minor offenders can be given the opportunity to involve in some community services rather than prison-time. But another set of people are in favor of sending all types of criminals to the jail. However, I beleive that commiting any type of crime, requires punishment so that, major criminal oocurances can be avoided in the future.
To begin with, we have seen many humanitarian organisations figting for the rights of people, who have committed miniscule unlawful activities. So, they advise the authorities to abstain from sending them to the prison. The reason behind this thought could be, keeping a first time offender in the same facility with a professional criminal, can have adverse effect, such as, the person getting influenced to become a serious law-breaker in the future. For example, sending an underage convict to a juvenile home, does not always gurantee reformation.
On the contrary, taking a lighter stand on the unlawful activities, can cause more harm than benefit. The legal system works in a way, that follows the strict method of calling out what is wrong. Be it in any form of unethical practice, it is punishable under the eyes of law. Though, legal system takes utmost care that innocents are protected under any circumstances, but releasing a convicted person is unacceptable.
Moreover, government takes all the measurements of reforming an convict so that they can lead a normal life after their jail-term. For example, most of the jails allow learning providers to educate their inmates and even board exams are conducted for them to earn degrees. Similarly, many such facilities allow manual trainings, through which they can learn new skills and manufacture items to have future livelihoods.
As a conclusion, we can say that some people choose the human factor over lawful system of the society. But to maintain the safety and bring in actual changes, it is imperative that criminals learn their mistake in hardways, and tur out to be a law abiding citizen in future.