Water bosses could be jailed

*Water bosses could be jailed if they cover up sewage dumping under new law.*

The government looked into the causes of a deadly fire in an apartment building and found that several companies were jointly dishonest and many government bodies failed to do their job of insisting on safe construction.

All sorts of regulations to protect the environment and people's health and safety, should carry criminal penalties for intentional conduct that significantly endangers people. The punishment for a serious violation should include prison, for individuals, and for corporations seizure and liquidation.

Anyone can make a mistake — even a CEO who has acted wrongly may have done it unknowingly — so everyone accused must have a fair trial to judge culpability. But intentional disregard for those regulations, when it occurs to a significant extent, should be grounds for severe punishment.

This should not be limited to cases where serious injury to specific actually persons occurred as a result. When that was avoided by sheer luck, the crime should be the same.

Merely banning a company from operating in a country may have no effect. Even shutting down the corporation directly involved may be insufficient. Many construction businesses do (or at least used to) start a new corporation each year as a scheme to shrug off subsequent fines or judgments. The law should refuse to be thwarted by such schemes.

If this helps drive the UK's formerly public but nowadays private water companies into bankruptcy, so much the better, since it will avoid the need to "compensate" their stockholders when renationalizing them.

We need capitalism so it can drive people's desire for profit into competing to do a good job for society. However, they will face constant temptation to cheat their customers, their workers and the general public. We must make sure they recognize those methods are too dangerous to try.

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