Impunity
Etymology
From Latin “impunitas,” from “in-,” “not,” + “poena,” “punishment, penalty,” which came from Greek “poinē,” “blood-price, penalty.” Impunity is literally the state of no-penalty; the same “poena” root also gives us “pain,” “penal,” and “subpoena.”
noun · /im-PYOO-nih-tee/
Exemption from punishment or from the consequences of one’s actions.
What it names
Reach for it to name the specific condition in which wrongdoing reliably goes unpunished — the rot that lets abuse repeat.
Example
When soldiers can shoot civilians with impunity, the law has effectively ceased to exist for them.
Related idea
Impunity is the practical opposite of accountability: not the absence of a rule but the absence of consequences for breaking it. Laws can be strict on paper while impunity reigns in fact, because no one is ever actually held to account.