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Is Life Really Cheaper Than Pollution?

Debate raged at the recent Maritime Manpower conference in Singapore, over the lack of consistency in criminalising seafarers. The assertion was made that, "criminalisation has been and is continuing to be applied inconsistently".

The question was posed, "is polluting taken more seriously than killing?", and two landmark cases were discussed.....

....So in an incident with pollution, but no deaths both masters were jailed, while the officers on watch in an incident in which four people died avoided jail. How can this be happening?