Reading Comprehension

PT158 · S1 · P4 · Q27 Criminal Sanctions

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The use of criminal sanctions against corporations is well established, but the practice has recently come under fire from legal theorists who maintain that corporations should be held civilly rather than criminally liable for wrongdoing.

Written Summary below video summary

Topic

Criminal vs. civil sanctions for corporate misdoings (as well as criminal sanctions against the corporation vs. against individuals within it)

Framework

Challenge a Position (she challenges two different positions)

Main Point

Criminal is better than civil, and criminally sanctioning corporations is better than criminally sanctioning individuals at those corporations.

Summary

P1 - Opposing Position #1 (let's use civil, not criminal sanctions)

We get our first Purpose Pivot (but, yet, however, recently) in the 2nd half of the first sentence. This sets the stage for the main topic: should we go after corporate wrongdoing with criminal or civil sanctions?

These legal theorists "maintain / argue / claim" a series of points: Point 1. Furthermore, Point 2. Finally, Point 3.

P2 - Author Challenges that Position (criminal is better)

Since the first paragraph stayed in the voice of the legal theorists, we would anticipate a new view in the 2nd paragraph, and the however tells us that the author is talking now. The author affirms that criminal is the better choice since it's a stronger deterrent, it's more feasible to actually bring a suit to court, and the moral condemnation we want to achieve is better expressed through criminal law.

P3 - Opposing Position #2 (lets do criminal sanctions against individuals, not against the corporation)

These other legal theorists "argue / they maintain / they say" that going after individuals would have a bigger deterrent effect and wouldn't have the risk of harming "innocent bystanders", like shareholders / creditors / employees / consumers, that would come with going after the corporations themselves.

P4 - Author Challenges Position #2 (better to do it against corporation)

Again, a however in the first sentence indicates to us that we're switching back to the Author's Voice. She thinks that targeting corporations is better because it's easier to prosecute a company for wrongdoing than to pin blame on individual employees, and the potential damage that criminal sanctions vs. a corporation can do to that corporation also has a deterrent effect on shareholders and employees.

Going after individuals deters the few wrongdoers from doing bad, but going after corporations means that the whole corporate culture will be motivated to stay on the good path. The author acknowledges that there can be some harmful byproducts of this path but reassures us that they are outweighed by the positives.

27.

The author would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements?

  1. In many instances, corporations that

    Opposite

    Even though this is a moderate sounding idea, we can't find a supporting line for it, and it goes against the gist of our author, who stakes out two big positions: criminal > civil targeting corporations > targeting individuals This answer is saying, "in many cases, civil > criminal" In the first sentence of the 2nd paragraph, the author asserts that "criminal liability is a much stronger deterrent".

    9% picked this

  2. The main function of civil

    Too Strong

    We have no idea what this author thinks is the main function of civil liability. The author is saying in the 4th paragraph that his problem with criminally prosecuting individuals, rather than corporations, is that it's often hard to locate blame to one specific person (in the language of this answer choice, it's difficult to identify an individual who is responsible for corporate misdeeds). That paragraph had nothing to do with civil liability; it was debating the 3rd paragraph, so the topic at hand was "criminal prosecution of individuals vs. of corporations".

    10% picked this

  3. Currently, corporations are more often

    Opposite

    The first sentence of the passage suggests the opposite of this answer. It says that criminal is well established (which sounds like "it's the norm"), but that it recently has come under fire from people saying, "Hey, we should switch to civil." So currently, it's criminal.

    12% picked this

  4. Many people who criticize the

    Unsupported

    The only time the passage discusses people who criticize the use of criminal sanctions is in the 1st paragraph. Nothing there sounds like them saying, "We should use civil law, not criminal, since corporate wrongdoing seldom causes harm to individuals." Since civil liability requires an identifiable victim, the people in the 1st paragraph (who criticize criminal and endorse civil instead) are definitely assuming that corporate wrongdoing does harm individuals. Otherwise, their suggestion would make no sense — you can't deter corporate wrongdoing with civil liability if there are no individual victims to file suits.

    29% picked this

  5. Correct

    In a significant number of

    Why this is right

    In the 2nd paragraph, the author is saying, "I prefer criminal to civil. Civil has less deterrent power, since civil litigation requires an identifiable victim with the necessary resources to commence litigation". That implies that the author is worried that some cases of corporate wrongdoing wouldn't be able to be addressed with civil liability, because either/both of these would apply - there isn't an identifiable victim - the victim doesn't have enough resources to commence litigation (they don't have enough money to hire a lawyer to sue the company for its wrongdoing) "In a significant number of cases" is a quantifier we might worry about, but since the author is highlighting that using civil litigation could be problematic because of the fact that victims might not have the necessary resources, the author clearly thinks it's a significant issue. She wouldn't think this was a significant worry to raise if she didn't think that there could be a significant number of cases in which corporations do something wrong, and their victims don't have enough money to hire lawyers in order to sue the company. Since 3 of the 4 wrong answers went the Opposite direction, we don't need much support for this to be the most supported answer.

    Skill tested: Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    41% picked this

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