The penality for all non-felonies should be community service.
The community service should ideally be related to the nature of the infraction/misdemeanor.
Littering should be picking up trash near where you littered. Speeding should be picking up trash near where you sped so you can experience why speeding is bad. Simple battery should result in something like cutting bushes outside an emergency room.
There should be no administrative fee for doing your community service. Time served in jail awaiting trial could perhaps be credited at 1/3 or 1/2 time. Or full time if you volunteer to start doing community service on a chain gang while you wait for trial if you know you will be pleading guilty.
This is to get around the idea that fines for rich people are a mere user fee, and in a broader sense to make sure everyone suffers more or less equally for the same crime... With older people suffering a little bit more doing the same tasks due to their creaky body because they should have known better.
It would also free up jail space. Basically jails (as opposed to prisons) would mostly be for pre-trial detention.