Rather than imprisonment, it's great! (4)
I believe the answer is:
fine
'rather' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'imprisonment it's great' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'it' could be 'e' ('e' can mean 'electronic' which is similar to 'IT') and 'e' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'fin' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'than' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for fine that I've seen before include "Very high quality money penalty" , "Excellent kind of monetary penalty" , "Magnificent" , "Very thin - excellent?" , "Super" .)