The Labour party is preparing to get weak on crime and release one batch of criminals to bang up another. What a difference that will make to the safety of our streets! The Roman emperor Augustus did things differently: when the system got blocked up, he released all those whom he considered to be held on vexatious charges.
What blocked the system, however, was not imprisonment but the number of people detained while awaiting trial on charges relating to the civil war which brought Augustus to power. Those involved were the elites (for whom detainment was shameful) being ‘held on charges for the pleasure of their enemies’. It was all part of a legal system that went back a long way.
Rome’s XII Tables (c.
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