Corporate Criminals and Punishment Theory

Corporations are subject to criminal law and sentencing provisions in most legal jurisdictions in the world. This article considers how leading punishment theories apply to corporations. Corporations are, this article argues, group agents with the capacity to make moral judgments. It follows from this that retributivism, the dominant theory of punishment for moral agents, ought to be understood as a component justification of corporate punishment. However, a more fundamental problem arises in the attempt to apply punishment theory to corporations: punishment involves suffering, and corporations cannot suffer in the relevant sense. This means that corporations cannot be punished, though they can be harmed. I explore the possibilities of simply abandoning the word ‘punishment’ and creating sentences that are not at the same time punishments. This has the drawback of limiting what the criminal law can accomplish when it comes to addressing corporate malfeasance. I find that at least one practical consequence for corporate sentencing follows from this theoretical distinction: sentencers have more legitimate authority to raise upper limits for sentences for corporations than they do for individuals, though there are still principles that dictate the need for upper limits. Despite the impossibility of true punishment, the theories of retributivism, deterrence and rehabilitation are still relevant when sentencing corporations.