Prison would probably be better. I don't think they should let him off the hook, but I'd expect a
lot of people lie in court and flashy penalties for Jones aren't going to change that, so there are questions here about consistency of outcome for people going to court. Given that his lawyers were in on it it is questionable whether he does actually understand the risks of his actions, he appears to be getting very bad quality legal support.
He could be go to court every day of his life, lie continuously, fight them every step of the way and it still wouldn't do a level of harm that justify some of the payouts. They are huge, numbers have been tossed around in the range of billions. The engineering value of an entire human life is only around the 10 million mark. And the courts agree with a lot of that because these are punitive damages, so it is very much a judgement call about what is appropriate. It doesn't look like the judges are doing a great job on that front. The punishments are too extreme; from the outside it looks like Jones targeting these people was the best thing that ever happened to them by a wide margin.