The eCrozier

In 1983, as a just-graduated seminarian from Virginia Theological Seminary, I spent time in a District of Columbia jail for staying too long in the Capitol Rotunda praying for peace and singing hymns. I mention that, not to raise the issues that led me there, but to point out it is more jail time than anyone from the British bank HSBC will ever spend from their wrong-doing. HSBC recently admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Latin American drug cartels and breaking other U.S. laws such as The Trading With the Enemy Act.

HSBC’s $1.9 Billion settlement with the U.S. Justice Department happened during this past Christmas shopping season, so you may have missed it. The $1.9 Billion fine, by the way, only represents about 5 weeks of revenue for HSBC. So, we should be clear here, a bank that knowingly laundered drug cartel money, money gained from countless murderous acts, has no one going to jail thanks to the decision made by the Obama Justice Department. The New York Times editorialized that HSBC was not only “too big to fail,” it was also apparently, “too big to indict” out of concern that bank executives going to jail might upset the international banking system.

Until now, I always had concluded that I deserved my jail time. I knew what I was doing in my civil disobedience; that one possible outcome might be jail time. But now I need to reconsider whether I (or others who spend time in jail) actually deserve to be there. If one can knowingly launder drug cartel money, money coated in murderous blood, and not go to jail, then how can anyone representing any sense of justice tell me my time in jail (or anybody else’s) was deserved?

I know, as my Daddy used to say: two wrongs don’t make a right. The fact that HSBC bank executives will not spend even one night in jail does not justify my crime and make it right. But this conveys a message that if one is wealthy and connected enough, then one can really get away with murder, or at least accessory to it. Remember, no one is merely “alleging” these things were done; the five-weeks-of-revenue-plea-agreement is an admission they were done.

I don’t believe in the death penalty for anyone or any crime (Jesus said it, I believe it, and that’s that). The rationale people give for the death penalty is that it deters heinous crimes. But most death sentences are handed out to murderers who commit their crimes in the heat of passion (or drug/alcohol-induced passion). In the act, deterrence isn’t a rational consideration for them. For those who buy the deterrence argument, then these HSBC executives would be prime candidates. It takes rational planning and thought to set up these schemes to launder billions in drug cartel money. If bank executives thought that they might be executed for such crimes (a Guillotine on Wall Street comes to mind), it would clean up the banking system quickly.

The larger moral challenge for us is how we explain this to our children so they will have respect for justice. Right now, I’m at a loss for an explanation.

+Scott