Grenfell Tower Block Fire in London

[Lord Revan]

I suppose only real alternative would be essentially a "decapition strike" where if a company did something illegal the CEO at the time would be held personally responsible (aka any punishments would be given like the CEO did that as an individual) and that's impractical for a number of reasons.

[Simon_Jester]

Among other things, all the other executives would then have incentives to do nasty things that increase profits and boost their stock options, set the CEO up as the fall guy, and then hope to be promoted into his shoes if they're able to keep their hands apparently 'clean.'

Racketeering laws and corporate law both run into the same basic problem: The core ideas of our justice system are based on the idea of individuals personally committing crimes against other individuals. When a large group of people form a single collective, one that acts in a coordinated way almost like a 'hive mind,' and the collective continues to survive and thrive no matter what happens to any single individual in it... Suddenly, individual-focused justice becomes hard.

Arresting one mob boss won't stop the mob, and even managing to accomplish that much is hard because the mob bosses have layers of deniable cutouts separating them from their foot soldiers. The decision-making "brain" of the organization is distributed across a large number of individuals, and a decision can be reached without there being clarity about who is personally responsible, or how much involvement was had by individuals who seemingly weren't part of the process.

Corporations aren't explicitly designed to be criminal the way the mafia are, but when corporations do start committing crimes you run into the same problem you do with the mafia.

[Zaune]

The public inquiry starts today. A spokesperson made assurances that it "can and will provide answers". It had damn well better if they don't want riots.