Iconic authors
Themes
Bibliography of the day
The Ticket-of-Leave Trap, or How Watching the Released Convict Can Send Him Back
Release on licence promised freedom under watch. Witnesses of the 19th and early 20th centuries show how police surveillance could cost released convicts their jobs, and why Irish supervision, tied to employment, fared better.
Paid justice and the power to choose the judge
Adam Smith praised courts paid by fees for their diligence; Bentham and the reformers saw a tax on justice and a judge with a stake in each case. Behind the quarrel lies a third question: who decides that a case comes to court, and where.
