#10

The regulations currently in place to stop people from spilling oil is simply that it is illegal, therefore the only way to improve upon this (IE make people and corporations more careful). Would be to make the punishment for spilling oil worse, currently I believe that all you need to do is settle financially and no burden is being placed on the individual just the company. This punishment functions well for the argument I am trying to make but isn’t entirely effective because oil spills (of all magnitudes) are fairly common. If instead of simply settling financially the people responsible for a spill were incarcerated it would heavily deter oil spills. This being said this kind of action would never stand because generally most oil spills are accidental so it would be unfair especially because the person who would be considered “responsible” is probably some manager who was overseeing but in reality had nothing to do with the spill. In a perfect world this would work but in reality it’s simply impractical to blame an individual for a company’s actions, therefore the only logical heightened punishment would be to take more money, more then just simply too much to settle but maybe twice or even three times as much as is needed. This kind of action will never be passed because it is complete overkill which isn’t the point of the justice system, it’s the equivalent of giving someone life in prison for petty theft, it is completely unreasonable.

(250 Words)