system
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human
Prisons don't work - CMV

So basically my belief is that criminals should not be sent to prison except if they are an active danger to society, like if they are a paedophile or a serial killer.

In school we learned that there are 4 "reasons" we might send someone to prison. Retribution, Isolation, Rehabilitation, Deterrance. I think Isolation is the only valid reason.

* Retribution because obviously wrongdoers deserve to be punished, yes? I don't buy this because I think the justice system can't sink to the level of a criminal. It's hypocritical if sentencing laws sanction wrong action to be taken against a criminal because they've done wrong. Two wrongs making a right in the justice system undermines the whole idea of right and wrong and it would be better on principle if the justice system led by example. It's a justice system, not a revenge system.
* Deterrence because obviously, people who would become criminals might not want to be sent to prison, and so might modify their behaviour so that they are not sent to prison. This argument, while it makes sense, is not empirically true. States in the US with the death penalty have just as high murder rates as States without it. This is because a lot of crimes are committed opportunistically or in the heat of the moment: the majority of people don't think rationally through the consequences before they commit a crime.
* Rehabilitation - because in prison a criminal learns discipline and can learn from his mistakes. This is also not empirically true. Prisons can form "colleges of crime" where minor offenders come out of prison worse than when they went in because they learn from more serious offenders how best to commit crime. Reoffending rates of prison sentences are much higher than that of community service orders and a lot of criminals even prefer the routine of prison compared to the instability that exists in many of their home lives on the outside.

Lastly, prison is extremely costly and overcrowded. In the UK, it costs nearly £40,000 pounds (more than a whole year's salary for a lot of people) to incarcerate them. In addition, the prisons are overcrowded, but when you consider that 66% of the prison population is only there for 6 months or less for minor offences, it makes more sense to use alternatives to prison such as community service. They are cheaper, and reduce re offending more. CMV

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**EDIT:** So in the course of debate a number of things have come up. The first point is that without prison, because of the lack of a deterrent/retributive punishment two things will happen. Crime will increase because people don't mind getting caught and that the families of victims, unhappy with a lack of righteous punishment, will take the law into their own hands and dish out their own brand of less righteous punishment. So that everyone is up to speed, my answers have been that there is no excuse for vigilanteism and people must respect the rule of law. If they can't abide by this and they break the law they pose a threat to society and should therefore be jailed to isolate them. This isn't by any means the only solution, but is the first one I thought of.

The second point is that Community service is a "cop-out" punishment that will breed resentment towards the judicial system. I need to clarify a few things here. Community service is by no means the only alternative to a custodial sentence. Probation, a suspended sentence, tagging, curfews, generalised restrictions of liberty and "restorative justice" (a sentence that is used especially in cases of young offenders where they have to talk to their victims and in so doing learn the true consequences of their actions) are all available to the courts. I am assuming that the courts would choose an appropriate variety of these for the same length of time as the comparable prison sentence, just as they current choose an appropriate sentence under the current system.
gpt
The retribution argument may seem problematic for the reasons you state, however, your alternative could cause an increase in violence.  People who have violent crimes committed against them and their families often feel the need for retribution.  When a government incarcerates someone for a period of years, people can feel like the government has taken care of the problem, even if all they're doing is locking the problem away.  If on the other hand, you have a murderer or rapist walking free and simply doing community service, people will not feel like that person got what was deserved.  Their family was hurt, and all that happened was the criminal simply had to work off the crime.  Their desire for retribution unfulfilled, they may then take matters into their own hands.  Why not kill someone who murdered your child if you know that all that will happen to you is more community service?  As problematic as the government punishing people is, its better than having punishment handled by the people who were harmed directly.