Probation is commonly used for first offenders of a crime if the person does not pose a serious danger to society. The reason for this is primarily economic. It is very expensive to keep a person in prison. There are thousands of costs per prisoner per month of incarceration. Prisons are chronically overcrowded because taxpayers resist having to pay for more of them. Further, when a person is incarcerated, not only does it cost money to maintain the prisoner, that person is no longer a working productive member of society.

Probation is not really meant as a punishment. Rather, it is a system to make sure the convicted person is turning his/her life around, staying out of trouble and working toward becoming a productive law abiding member of society. It has a punitive affect by forcing...