People who abuse animals are one step away from doing the same to people. This sick individual took great joy in inflicting serious injury to this cat, and even went out of his way to lure the cat in to do it. Do I object to jail time for him? Absolutely not - but I do agree that part of his sentence should be public service at an animal shelter - under the closest of supervision, of course.
But even if he did kick someone, the penalty is not a prison term. There is a reason why this country has the most people in the penal system, and the reason is that they do not think that there are alternatives to imprisonment, when to me it is obvious that there are.