I would much rather...

Don't look at it from the perp point of view, look at it from an average-middle-class-dude or a suburban-soccer-mom point of view.

If there's a guy who, say, committed a robbery in your neighborhood, physical punishment may or may not deter him from future robberies. You don't know and in the meantime he's still around. But if that guy gets sent to prison, the state guarantees that he will not be around for a fairly long time.

That is the major advantage of prisons over fines and/or physical punishments.