Business Week has this interesting interview with SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, which has the added benefit of invoking one of my favorite SEC quotes, from former SEC Chairman Richard Breeden.  Breeden once famously stated that he wanted to leave people who engaged in insider trading "naked, homeless and without wheels." 

From the interview:

Q: Why have you opposed some fines for corporate wrongdoers?
A: [Former SEC Chairman] Richard Breeden used to say "I want to leave them naked, homeless, and without wheels," which I thought crystallizes very well the idea that we should show no quarter to people who intentionally, willfully lie, cheat, and steal. They should not be left with the fruit of their misdeeds.

But when we extract a penalty from a company for financial fraud, it affects shareholders and employees. If you're a shareholder who held shares through all that and are still holding the shares now, your shares are worth less, but now we're taking money from the company to give only pennies on the dollar back to you. That hurts the company's ability to grow and ultimately hurts shareholder value.

Are we just sort of headline-grabbing? Is that really the best way to deter bad conduct, by hurting the people that we're supposedly helping? No. The best solution is to hold individuals accountable because someone in the company cooked the books. We ought to hold individuals accountable, not shareholders