American Corporate Criminals in the Crosshairs

Lisa Monaco says she’s going to enforce those deferred prosecution agreements — finally

Though corporations in America routinely break the law, often with fatal consequences, it’s fair to say America has no corporate criminals, because to have criminals, you need a criminal system that identifies criminal conduct and holds it to account. America does not have that.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#get-out-of-jail-free-card

When American corporations break the law, the individuals in the corporation are generally insulated from criminal liability because it’s considered unfair to hold anyone — even the millionaire top execs paid to be the person with whom the buck stops — criminally liable for institutional crimes.

But likewise, the US criminal justice system refuses to hold corporations themselves to account for their crimes. Corporate personhood is a useful fiction for all sorts of purposes, but it’s also a fiction that corporations and regulators are happy to set aside when that serves corporate interests.

When a corporation is caught criming, chances are it’ll get let off the hook. Often, that takes the form of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA), in which the company is put…