4 ms·
This made me think—what if we postulated that companies cannot be victims of a crime. Only physical persons can. So if all you do is harm to a company, it canno
by jhrmnn 3y ago
This made me think—what if we postulated that companies cannot be victims of a crime. Only physical persons can. So if all you do is harm to a company, it cannot be a crime by definition, the act can only be treated as a company doing harm to another company, and as a company you cannot go to prison
- devmor 3y agoBy doing harm to a company you can still do harm to the owners, employees and clients of that company. You'd only be changing the entities involved in the process, not the outcome.
- jhrmnn 3y agoTrue. But then why do we almost never hold persons criminally accountable when they do harm through a company they control. Shouldn’t this be reciprocal?
- zdragnar 3y agoA person doesn't control a company like they do a car. Proving criminal liability for an individual requires evidence tied to that individual. Much easier, and a lower bar, to hold the corporate entity liable.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoWe could choose to hold executives and/or majority shareholders responsible instead of a "corporate entity".
- devmor 3y agoWe certainly could and I think, given a stringent set of regulations around record keeping of corporate decisions, we should. Passing such a set of laws seems like a pipe dream at best, though.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoWhy should it be any different than for example charging a parent for his negligence in controlling his child?
- tomjakubowski 3y agoWell, if you run a tailor shop in downtown Los Angeles and you decide to burn your rival's tailor shop down, the only victim there is the other company. So I suppose you couldn't be charged with arson in this framework.
- jhrmnn 3y agoI’d think that any harmful interaction with the physical world always affects also persons. In this case it at the least gravely endangers people
- tomjakubowski 3y agoYou could simply walk into your rival's shop and take all of the company's materials then, when no one's looking.
- DougN7 3y agoWhat if it’s a small company with 10 employees? Shutting down their lively shouldn’t just get swept under the rug.
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoA company can go to prison. Otherwise you'd just make a company and then go around stabbing people. If you made Stabbing Inc then all the employees would be imprisoned for the stabbing because they're part of the organisation and acting as the organisation.