Comment by arrosenberg
Comment by arrosenberg 21 hours ago
> This obviously has negative externalities, because while a corporation is easy to fine, it's hard to put in prison... but trying to approach it differently would be about as fun as modeling a CPU as a bunch of transistors.
There's nothing stopping the legislature (other than their own self-interest) from passing a law that executives and board members are criminally liable for the malfeasance of their entity. We already apply that logic to positions like a medical lab director.
This is already the case. Or rather, a corporation can not (e.g.) commit murder or theft because that usually requires some physical action. That physical action will be performed by a human, who can then be found guilty. If he was ordered to do so by (e.g.) the board, the board will be held as accessory to the crime and cam also be found guilty.
The problem is just that the board can usually claim they did not know, and that they have deep pockets to afford good attorneys. To get around the first thing, you have strict liability laws.
Strict liability laws, though, are how you end up with the situation where barkeepers are criminally liable for selling alcohol to underage people, even if they could not have known the buyer was underage (and that's about the only instance of strict liability in criminal law). I personally find this very unjust and would rather that strict liability was not part of criminal law.