“Accountability” can be a political buzzword. But in criminal law, it forms the foundation for punishment and brings a measure of justice for victims. Politicians and legal commentators agree that holding wrongdoers accountable is one of the primary functions of criminal law. Yet, in the context of corporate crime, the means of achieving genuine accountability are not clear. This article argues that the existence of two distinct systems of criminal law—one for street crime and the other for white-collar and corporate crime—is the reason accountability remains elusive in the corporate context. To be sure, there are certain features of criminal conduct in the corporate world that set it apart from other types of crime. However, these apparent differences cannot justify the conceptual status of corporate crime as a separate system. After examining the most common reasons for differentiating between corporate and street crime, the article demonstrates that none of these justifications is compelling. As long as we focus on the unique features of corporate criminality, we will not succeed in holding wrongdoers accountable and will therefore undermine the deterrent effects of criminal law. Instead, we must develop a unified system of criminal law that properly holds each individual offender accountable without granting special status to a whole category of wrongdoers: white-collar and corporate criminals.

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