In the United States, we seem to have a strong ethic of not throwing prior or opposing political leaders in jail because in the United States, we just don’t do things that way.
OTOH, that also implies that we don’t imprison or even prosecute prior or opposing political leaders no matter how much it might appear warranted, because we don’t want to create even the appearance of throwing prior or opposing political leaders in jail just because of politics.
Big precedent from fairly recent history was Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon (which was widely considered to have cost Ford the following election).
It seems quite plausible that Trump will be treated likewise.