They must be popping the corks off the champagne bottles in Bentonville. Wal-Mart makes a ton of money illegally. Once again, the Beast gets to break the law and get away with a slap on the wrist—no jail time for executives and a fine that, by its standards, is puny: it agreed to pay $11 million to “settle” charges that it used illegal immigrants to clean its stores.

Lilia Garcia, executive director of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a group that monitors conditions for janitors, had it right when she told The New York Times’ Steven Greenhouse, “The $11 million really isn’t that much when you consider this was going on in 21 states. It was a real pattern and practice.” She said that Wal-Mart was so huge that an $11 million penalty would hardly serve as a deterrent.”

This is a pattern. As I wrote a few backs when Wal-Mart cut its sweetheart deal with the Department of Labor over child labor violations, it’s absurd that government agencies are letting the Beast get away with puny financial penalties when they are endangering the lives of human beings or mistreating them. It’s time for people like CEO Lee Scott to face some jail time. When we start putting some of these CEO’s behind bars not just for lining their pockets but for really hurting people, then, and only then, will some of these abuses stop. And no Martha Stewart-like country-club prisons. Put ’em where they cry quietly at nightly listening to the violance around them–a fair punishment for the violence they create in the workplace. After two or three of these guys do some time, the word will get around.