Utilitarian?

I have been musing about this case:

A northeast Iowa dairy farmer convicted in a federal water pollution case committed suicide, the man's brother said. Carl Simon, 50, of Farley, was found dead Wednesday morning, the day he was to report to prison, said his brother, Leo Simon, also of Farley. Carl Simon was found at 6 a.m. inside a vehicle in his garage with the engine running, Leo Simon said. The Dubuque County medical examiner's office confirmed the death but said the cause of death was pending the outcome of an autopsy by the state medical examiner. Carl Simon was convicted in U.S. District Court in December of four counts of knowingly discharging pollutants into a waterway. He was sentenced in April to 30 months in prison.

Okay, pollution is bad. This was a farm manure spill into a creek. Icky, gross, and potentially hazardous to our health. It's going to cost lots to clean up. He should not only be punished, but also have to foot the bill for the sanitation process.

But prison? Really? Even if he's a repeat polluter, couldn't we choose instead to fine him high enough he'd have to get out of farming, or forfeit the farm or something? Was he such a threat to society that he had to be locked away with murderers and terrorists and rapists and drug dealers in a federal penitentiary? Given our prison population is growing exponentially, I wonder if we need to start talking priorities here. Violent offenders, those who hurt kids, those who steal or burglarize or rape or generally pose a threat to society: I'm all in favor of locking them up for long periods of time, in many cases much longer than they generally get (2 days on a broken bone in a domestic assault still irks me). But I'm wondering if there aren't better solutions to deal with non-violent, non-threatening offenders, like forfeiture of the farm in this case, or really high fines that will have the added bonus of replenishing some of our depleted government budgets. If you make the non-prison punishments high enough they will have a deterrent effect. Just a thought. Particularly when I recall that non-domestic assault with a dangerous weapon only merits at most a two-year sentence, no matter how many times you've done it.