Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski and CFO Mark Swartz faced sentencing on charges including grand larceny and securities fraud, among others. During that time, the AP ran an article implying that the sentencing of Kozlowski and Swartz could indicate if the "pendulum has swung too far", meaning that corporate executives convicted of felonies are being sentenced to harsher prison terms than would-be mass murders, referencing the 22-year sentence of Ahmed Ressam, who plotted to bomb the Los Angeles airport. A couple of years
ago, many pundits felt that Martha Stewart's sentence was too harsh---but her crime did not have the impact in dollars or lives that Bernie Madoff, for example, produced. But then, Madoff was recently sentenced to 150 years at a "plush" federal prison. Have criminal convictions and the accompanying sentencing, along with societal reaction to breaches of corporate law and business ethics, created a synergism that punishes the white-collar criminal too harshly or, as with the Madoff case, is a stiff sentence still needed to "send a message"? Be specific.