Suppose you discover that one of your co-workers has broken the law. And suppose that the particular crime you discover is directly related to their job. What would you do? If they're taking the odd box of staples home from the office then the answer is probably different than if they're raiding the company bank account.

 

But what if your co-worker's job involves the care of children and the crime that they have committed has those children as its victim? At what point would you call the police? Is there a scenario under which you would not answer "immediately?"

 

Let's just say that there is a hypothetical company in which, instead of calling the police, the reaction of company officers to discovering these crimes is to go no further than notifying their senior management. In itself, that may seem an inadequate response, but suppose even further, and I know this is a real stretch, that on receiving that notification the reaction of the senior management was not to safeguard the victims and protect other potential victims, but instead to focus on preserving the reputation of the company.

I know this is starting to sound ridiculous but suppose even further that some time later, evidence of the crimes becomes public and it starts to look like there were not just one or two isolated incidents, but that crimes against children are being perpetrated by company officers all over the world.

Perhaps documents emerge to show that multiple members of senior management were aware that this was going on and not only did they not scramble to stop it, but even went so far as to try to cover up the details.

Imagine further that documents begin to appear that give the distinct impression that the current CEO was personally involved in the cover-up and himself chose to protect the reputation of the company rather than victims of the crimes. And then imagine that the response of that CEO to all this information finding its way into the public domain is to say nothing much and carry on as if all's well.

I know that this all sounds unbelievable and nothing like this could really happen. You couldn't create a legal department that would stand by and watch as nothing happens to the perpetrators of crimes like these. Or a public relations department that would do anything other than come clean and co-operate with the authorities. And surely there're no company officers who would allow themselves to be seen in public doing anything other than taking the issue very seriously.

Even the idea that a company officer would ask victims to sign confidentiality agreements under which they agree not to go to the authorities is preposterous. No sane person would want anything less than the perpetrators of crimes against children immediately brought to justice, whether they were co-workers or not.

But just imagine that this could all really happen and that the crime we are talking about is the molestation and rape by company officers of children placed in their care. How long would it take for that company to be abandoned by its creditors, dumped by its shareholders and raided by the authorities? How soon would we be seeing pictures on television of company officers being led away in handcuffs?

Not soon enough seems to be a reasonable answer. At least that's what you'd think. But I left one thing out of my hypothetical scenario. What if the corporation in question was in the business of making pronouncements about what is and what isn't morally correct behaviour? Or, if that corporation is known to claim that its existence and the activities of its CEO are officially sanctioned by an all-powerful being who rules unseen and undetectable over all of humanity; past, present and future.

That makes all the difference, doesn't it?