In the 2008 Siemens foreign bribery case, at the time the biggest bribery case ever, the German conglomerate pleaded guilty in a United States court and paid over $1.6 billion in fines. “Even though it was the biggest bribery case of all time, not a single individual has been convicted” in the United States, Professor Garrett noted. (Two lower-level employees were found guilty in Germany, but they were sentenced to probation. In the United States, eight individuals were charged but those cases have stalled.) No top official was held criminally accountable.

A particularly egregious example is Pfizer, the large pharmaceutical company, which appears to have been a serial offender despite a string of nonprosecution agreements and guilty pleas in which it promised to behave better. In the most recent instance, in 2009, a Pfizer subsidiary pleaded guilty and Pfizer paid $2.3 billion, including a criminal fine of $1.2 billion, for bribing doctors to prescribe an off-label painkiller and an antipsychotic drug. Despite the company’s recidivism, none of its senior executives have ever been charged or convicted. “They never seem to go up the chain when it involves big pharma,” Professor Garrett noted.

In an earlier column, I noted that Tyson Foods entered into a deferred prosecution agreement and paid a $4 million fine in 2011 after disclosing what would seem to be an open-and-shut case of bribery at its Mexican subsidiary. Not only were no individuals charged or even named, but the highest-ranking executive involved took early retirement and got a send-off that would be the envy of any law-abiding employee: $1 million in cash, a $3.6 million consulting deal, reimbursement of his country club dues and use of the corporate jet.

Reviewing Professor Garrett’s book in The New York Review of Books, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court, who has also criticized the paucity of individual prosecutions for corporate crime, observed that “the impact of sending a few guilty executives to prison for orchestrating corporate crimes might have a far greater effect than any compliance program in discouraging misconduct, at far less expense and without the unwanted collateral consequences of punishing innocent employees and shareholders.”

But diagnosing the problem may be easier than curing it. “Our responsibility is to bring cases when the evidence and the law support it, and we have done that in record numbers in the white-collar area over the last five years,” said Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman. “When the evidence and the law support it, we have not and will not hesitate to bring cases against anyone, regardless of his or her position. And if the evidence and the law do not support it, we will not bring charges, regardless of the popularity of such restraint.”

David A. O’Neil, a former head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, agreed.

“Every prosecutor would prefer to bring a charge against individuals than against corporations,” said Mr. O’Neil, who joined the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton in January. “It’s not that there’s a preference to go after corporations. That may be the reality due to the difficulties of particular cases, but every prosecutor would prefer to bring a charge against the culpable individual.”