I don't know if there is any sort of numerical link but the 'Herald of Free Enterprise' ferry disaster was a spur for the UK to develop a new offence of Corporate Manslaughter to cover such crimes by negligence.
I forget when it happened -1980s I think - but in that incident the ferry left the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, bound for an English port, before the car deck's bow door was properly closed. As the ship picked up speed it "swallowed" its own bow wave, flooding the car deck which was only just above the water-line, and causing the ship to capsize with a very high loss of life. The case revolved on the bridge officers taking the ship out of harbour without first ensuring the door was fully shut.
Under Corporate Manslaughter law, the directors can now be held responsible even if nowhere near the scene, if it was shown they not taken all reasonable steps as the law would say, to make sure the operating equipment and staff had all necessary precautions, protections and training to avoid an accident as far as practicable.
The law does recognise that no-one is a sooth-sayer, so expects companies to use accumulated knowledge and experience to assess their specific hazards and the risks, and act accordingly; and if an accident does happen it is very much to everyone's advantage if the company can show it did everything foreseeably possible as well as legally required, to have prevented accidents.
Often the precautions boil down to quite simple, common sense things. For example, after that ferry disaster the shipping companies started fitting CCTV etc to give their bridge crews a car-deck view of the doors.
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As for the Herald herself, she was righted, re-floated, hurriedly cleaned up and re-named though that fooled no-one, then towed half way round the world to India, to be broken up.
Do you mean "office" rather than "offence"? Corporate Manslaughter? Now there's an eyecatching government entity. Do you know how many died? I guess greater numbers of people die from "natural" events like tsunamis and earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes and floods. Human error costs lives but intentional error is heinous and probably more deadly. I wonder who was the first human to take the life of another human? Probably in self-defense or maybe because the human who was murdered had something the murderer wanted. I don't know. I don't know what makes such people tick. Or tock. I cannot imagine causing ON PURPOSE the deaths of others. But some people take great delight in doing just that. It's a puzzlement. Thank you for your informative and comprehensive reply Durdle. :)
The Herald of Free Enterprise disaster occurred in March 1987. It killed 187 people, mainly from hypothermia in the cold North Sea water as the ship capsized onto a sandbank so was not fully submerged. Subsequent to the investigations revealing a catalogue of errors, confusion of responsibilities and bad practice, 7 ferry-company employees were charged with "gross negligence manslaughter". That means it was accepted that they had no intention at all of killing anyone. but were so negligent in their duties that all those lives, and the ship, were lost. The charge of Manslaughter against the company itself failed but the case did set a precedent for it being developed under its own Act and admissible in English Law.
UK law defines two forms of 'unlawful killing', with that phrase itself used in Inquests and Inquiries to avoid laying specific charges against individuals or organisations. Those two hearings do not apportion blame but seek to establish what went wrong, and if the causes may be considered acts of commission or omission for which subsequent criminal charges may be appropriate.
The first form is Murder - this is a premeditated, intentional taking of life.
The other is Manslaughter - there is no prior intent to kill anyone but the death(s) resulted from something that could and should have been prevented, and might arise from undue force in self-defence, broken endurance, or negligence.
There have been been a few cases in Britain of people imprisoned for murder later having their convictions reduced to manslaughter when appeals, and sometimes considerable public disquiet, examined the motive more closely. This has happened with serious domestic-abuse and self-defence cases. The judge will re-sentence the offender to a jail term more applicable to manslaughter, and this may mean the person has already served that time in the added remand and murder sentence, so can be released.
"Corporate Manslaughter" prevents the board of a negligent or badly-run organisation trying to evade responsibility by using the operators directly involved as scapegoats. They might be guilty too, but the senior management is held to have failed to minimise, or even raised, the risk of the incident happening anyway.
This is directly copied from a UK Government web-site:
Prosecutions will be of the corporate body and not individuals, but the liability of directors, board members or other individuals under health and safety law or general criminal law, will be unaffected. And the corporate body itself and individuals can still be prosecuted for separate health and safety offences.
Not very many Corporate Manslaughter cases have been brought or have succeeded, hopefully because not many have been necessary!
Natural disasters can indeed leave much higher death-tolls, but that does not lessen the seriousness of murder or manslaughter.
There cannot be any such thing as an "intentional error" because as well as being self-contradictory it means the outcome was intended.
Human beings will make mistakes. Human-made systems will sometimes fail. The law recognises that but insists that that simple fact calls for protection as far as possible against the effects of mistakes and failures.
I don't know if US Law calls for it, but in the UK companies have to go through what can be quite extensive processes to give themselves, their employees and their users, members of the public etc. as appropriate, such protection.
In essence, it is done by preparing Risk Assessments for specific areas or operations. You ask first, "What are we doing?", "What might go wrong with that / what the particular dangers?" Those identify the particular Hazards.
Then you ask, "How likely is it to go wrong?", "How severe is the probable outcome?" Those identify the Risk from each Hazard.
Next you establish the severity of the danger - the risk of it happening might be very low but the outcome high, or vice-versa; or both very high. Then you ask, "What do we do to minimise the risk?" - anything from finding a completely different way via writing comprehensive operating-procedures, to something as basic as ordering the staff to wear safety-glasses or gloves of appropriate, agreed standards.
If something goes wrong, especially if someone is killed, almost the first thing the statutory and insurance investigators will do is go through the paperwork, and that's not been done, or is weak, they will throw the book at the company directors and after a death, they could find themselves facing a Manslaughter charge. If all is on order, proving the firm did all it could to prevent the accident, the directors are much less likely to be prosecuted. Many industrial accidents are the fault of the casualty breaking the rules laid down by all that paperwork.
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Causing deaths on purpose and not in self-defence, i.e. Murder, is a totally different matter; and seems to be something that has dogged humanity since ancient times. We can never know where and when it first arose; but robbery as you suggest is sometimes one motive. I do not know if many murders are purely gratuitous. Most have some twisted reason such as rivalry, revenge or theft.
In UK law, sentencing for murder and subsequent parole hearings usually try to take into account both the motive and the likelihood of the murderer repeating the offence or endangering witnesses, so the imprisonment is both direct punishment and public protection. Genuinely full-life tariffs are rare and used only for the worst and most dangerous murderers, and some of those are mentally ill in some way so detained in a secure mental hospital. Otherwise the sentence is "Life" but with a minimum number of years before consideration for release on licence.
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Chimpanzees are known for gang-killing Colobus Monkeys sharing their forests - the chimps divide into two teams, and one team climbs the trees to drives the small monkeys forwards to be ambushed by the other team. This is though a form of predation rather than mere murder, because the chimps take the corpses back to the rest of their colony as food.
I looked up OFFENCE and its definition is OFFENSE so it's just the way Brits spell it I gather. What happens when a Corporation COVERS UP dangers of its products knowing full well the potential harm but selling it anyway? And what happens to the callous the indifferent who just want to make a quick buck and don't give a rat's a** how? Cold calculated indifference. Or worse going against what's best by lying about it? EVEN WORSE THAN THAT AND EQUALLY GUILTY? Those who buy that slime that scum that crap and cheer for the cold calculating indifferent to continue on doing harm. I'd like to throw "the book" at all of the dumb cluck duck egger onners and supporters. SIGH. I would. They are to blame for accepting embracing supporting defending encouraging cheering on. Why should they get off the hook? T'is a pity and a shock that there are so many cold indifferent homo sapheads. MILLIONS of them. Anyone who votes for the dumb cluck duck. What SANE person would? We now have a STACKED PACKED Supreme Court. The newest "conservative" is a handmaid. The handmaid JUSTICE. 6-3 now and almost forever. STACKED PACKED extreme right wing fascist racists. SIGH.What do we do to combat that evil? Beats the he** outta me. It is very depressing. They cheated and disrespected and stonewalled fair and just when President Obama was President. They rigged and stacked and ignored and got a win. A POX on all of them! What do you expect of DESPICABLE RODENTS? Thank you for your thoughtful reply Durdle. Now what happens to us? We the people have been blocked. Now what? :(
This post was edited by RosieG at October 27, 2020 3:39 AM MDT
Well, yes, I do think Trump---like other serial killers---deserves the death penalty for being responsible for so many Covid-19 deaths that resulted from his negligence with regard to his response to Covid-19 pandemic.
Trump---with the confidence borne from never facing meaningful consequences for decades of sociopathic behavior---preached that the virus was only a Democratic hoax.
(Italics and underline from an internet article I read today.)
You know what I WISH tom? That every dumb cluck duck defender embracer supporter adorer worshipper would also suffer those penalties. THEY are to blame for his being here. I might have given them wiggle room had they abandoned the duck. Had the Senate done the RIGHT THING and IMPEACHED the SOB and then both the House and the Senate voted to REMOVE THAT DISEASED INSECT from office. We could excuse their dumbheaded ignorance by thinking that the dumb cluck duck would GROW INTO THE OFFICE. He raped and pillaged and infected it. THERE IS NO EXCUSE for their continued adoration and adamant support. FOR THAT they should be punished. I am DEADLY serious. I know that is an impossible dream but it is my wish. Mercy? I have none to give them. Never will. I'm far from perfect but I KNOW what is evil and what is not and they are all EVIL. OK. I'm done venting. So now we wait and watch and see what evil agenda lies ahead. Thank you for your reply tom. Apologies for venting on your watch. :(
This post was edited by RosieG at October 27, 2020 1:53 PM MDT
I am pretty certain that the dumb cluck duck is unaware of that particular bible verse tom. As are all his minions. Perhaps one day? Thank you for your reply! :)
Durdle 