[na85]

>Why don't we hold them accountable for their misdeeds?

Because they control public opinion via the media, the politicians via lobbying, and based on the disproportionate sentencing that gets reported (bank laundering cartel money gets nothing, woman gets jailed for not returning a rented movie), I'm inclined to wonder whether they control the justice system too.

[digitalengineer]

By a (former) NY Judge: "an institutional shift toward prosecuting companies rather than individuals. This has yielded some enormous monetary settlements but has, Judge Rakoff writes, “led to some lax and dubious behavior on the part of prosecutors, with deleterious results.”

The fear of prison concentrates the mind in a way the prospect of writing a check on a corporate account does not. “And from a moral standpoint,” Judge Rakoff writes, “punishing a company and its many innocent employees and shareholders for the crimes committed by some unprosecuted individuals seems contrary to elementary notions of moral responsibility.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/us/judge-raises-questions-...

[josephlord]

It makes sense to do both. Corporate punishments prevent senior people setting the environment such that junior ones break the law and take the fall while the company profits and individual punishments remind people of their own personal responsibility for their own actions and provides the personal fear. Neither replaces the other, both are necessary.