Been like ten years since I’ve seen the movie and I heard the sequel wasn’t great so don’t have complete context.

Anyway, jailing her is the right move for a punishment based society. She was an adult and committed crimes and stuff. There are some mitigating factors like childhood trauma, that most of it was accidental, and lack of fatalities (because it was a Disney movie, but it stands). To dissuade others, she should be jailed.

In a rehabilitation based society with a focus on maximum gain, it’s probably not the move. Most people would have a hard time in that situation— it’s not far off from someone experiencing significant mental stress and reacting poorly to being swatted. Except the police were, iirc, hired thugs sent to assassinate her. (Or, as some might say, the police.)

Even kind of hating the character due to overexposure, I don’t fault her too much for how she reacted. In the US we have the standard of what a reasonable person might do, and I’m not entirely sure she would be convicted of most charges even here.

Now factoring in the potential uses of a magical monarch, it’s probably wasteful to throw her in jail. Tourism and industrial uses alone offset the benefits of throwing the book at her. Is it fair that a more useful person could get lenience? No, but the gain heavily outweighs the nonexistent benefits. It would probably be best to let her do her thing but remove her inherited power. Further displays of intentional violence should be met with imprisonment. Or I guess outright execution, since you can’t really imprison someone like that, but I’m not pro death penalty.