I'm thinking the only suitable punishment for something like this is to ban the company's products from sale for a long period of time. VW-corp isn't hurting from some executive or engineer being incarcerated.
All of them benefited from cheating exactly the same way they would be "punished" now.
If we don't punish institution itself, companies are motivated to hire and promote the people ok with small risk of jail in exchange of money and status. Which is exactly what is happening.
> Punish the decision makers and the ones who knew about it.
I agree. Though I think there is also a case to be made for punishing further up the 'chain of responsibility' - ultimately including the shareholders (who were punished by the market - and rightly so).
