NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Has the perp walk lost its power?

Stocks rallied on Rigas. They ran higher on Waksal. They even lifted on Taubman. But alas, the arrest of WorldCom ex-chief financial officer Scott Sullivan didn't do a thing for the market Thursday. Instead, stocks dove as investors fretted that a weak report from the Institute for Supply Management augurs a double-dip recession.

Maybe authorities need to step up their efforts. Make higher-profile arrests. Start using leg chains. Put executives in front of a jury of angry shareholders rather than a jury of their peers. Drop the convicted into a pool of snakeheads...

Laugh if you want, but something has to be done. A big reason for the market's fall is investors' growing distrust of company managements (thanks to WorldCom, Enron, Qwest et al), and now an increasing number of economists worry the drop in stocks is threatening the economy. Taking action against corporate malfeasance is one way to restore investor confidence. And nothing warms the cockles of the markets' heart these days like seeing the bad guys being led away.

When stocks put on their monster rally last week lots of traders were crediting the widely televised morning arrest of John Rigas, the former head of Adelphia Communications, with helping spark the rally. The Dow closed the day up 489 points.

"That definitely helped," said Wells Fargo Securities managing director of listed trading Todd Clark the day of the rally. "Everybody wants to see some accountability for the stuff that's been going on, and we finally saw some people being taken away in cuffs."

The market has done well on other recent arrests, too. The Dow tacked on 100 points when former ImClone CEO Sam Waksal was charged in June. The day in December former Sotheby's chairman Alfred Taubman got convicted, the Dow ran up 220 points.

Even though history so clearly argues otherwise, not everyone believes the answer to what ails the market is more executives losing their opportunity to pass Go.

"You're telling me an institutional manager is going to start buying because he sees a WorldCom exec going to jail," said Kirlin Securities chief market strategist Tony Dwyer. "I'm not buying it. Hopefully, the process is a little bit more in depth than that."

But after seeing so many losses, how could seeing CEOs in shackles fail to cheer even the most calculating investor?

"I like them," said Clark of seeing execs being led away. "Bring 'em on."