A corporate crime by any other name is still a crime unless the name-calling is the hands-off government. While expounding from one side of the mouth that "the primary goals of criminal law are deterrence, punishment, and rehabilitation," our top law (non) enforcement agency leaves open the possibility of applying "non-criminal alternatives" to criminal offenses and offenders. Does that make even an iota of sense? It doesn't to me. To me, it's just one more travesty of justice that ought to be ended.
7. End Wrist Slapping; Stiffen the Penalties
Punishment of corporate crimes, when the government can't avoid giving it and corporate criminals can't get out of it, tends to amount to nothing more than a wrist slap considering the gravity of the crimes and the huge corporate resources that could be tapped. In the 1980s one former prosecutor complained that it was "hardly worth the candle" to bring corporations to trial because the resulting fines were so puny. While it's possible today for fines to be sizeable, they are still easily affordable and thus seen by criminal corporations merely as the price of doing business. It's also more likely than not that fines no matter how sizeable will be quietly slashed or allowed to go unpaid and accompanied by the government's lame excuse that compliance, not punishment is the goal.
Imprisonment of convicted senior executives, which would be a "body slap" I guess, rarely happens. While it's true that the Sarbanes/Oaxley Act of 2002, established on the heels of illegal escapades involving Enron and other corporations, does call for up to two years of imprisonment for convicted senior executives, the scope of the law is limited to the reporting of misleading financial statements, and there's always the possibility of a stay-out-of-jail card type of settlement. Even corporate homicides (e.g. a worker's death caused by willful plant safety negligence) are seldom prosecuted as homicides.
Corporations indicted the first time should have any federal contracts cancelled, be barred from any further contracts, not be allowed to deduct the cost of fines from their taxes, and be chained to on-shore headquarters and operations. Repeat offenders should have their doors shuttered and their assets liquidated. It may never happen, but it's what should happen.
I'm sure the petty thief I cited would have jumped at the chance to be pampered. But that's not the way it works in Corpocracy America. And in the final analysis, corporate criminals who can't avoid punishment can expect to get and usually do get less punishment than they should get. But don't expect them to be soft on people who offend them! Corporate management can be merciless, for instance, in retaliating against whistle blowing employees, sometimes ruining their lives in the process.
In conclusion, the government facilitates rather than deters corporate crime by maintaining a hands-off approach to it. This travesty of justice and the consequential, monumental harm of it all to America and Americans will not end until corporations no longer control our government or us.
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