Prison isn't the worst in the world unless you go there a lot
First, you need to determine whose sensibilities you are trying to spare: the offender's or society's. Then you have to realize that the offender has feelings, society doesn't. The only thing important to society as a whole is practicality.
What is a human life worth? No matter the crime or how heinous it might have been, the convicted person is someone's daughter or son, could be a wife or husband, might be a mother or father, a sister or brother. They matter or mattered to someone. Punishing the offender punishes the loved ones too.