I think the evidence is fairly clear that a custodial penalty is damaging in terms of rehabilitation and reintegration. If you can hold someone appropriately accountable in the community, it is far better to do it that way, because they maintain their links with housing, with any kind of treatment that they are undergoing, and with employment. If you come out of prison, you generally come out in a poorer state of mental and physical health than when you went in, often without provincial health care coverage, so you have some significant challenges in terms of locating health care. Unemployment is a big problem, as well as being released into homelessness.
Generally, people who are having to discharge their measure of accountability behind bars are facing a lot more problems.