Corporate Criminals and Punishment Theory

Sentencing principles for corporations should be consonant with those for individuals, and if they are not, there should be good reasons for the divergence. Theories of punishment and sentencing are also theories of how we justify using the coercive power of the state to punish people. This article considers how corporate entities should be treated under retributivism, a theory of punishment that holds that offenders deserve to be punished in proportion to their blameworthiness. I argue that corporations have the capacity to understand moral matters and make moral judgments, and retributivism must be included as a component principle in corporate sentencing