By the end of the week, the world’s attention will be focused on New York City and the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero. Americans will reflect on the terrible destruction and loss of life 10 years ago in lower Manhattan, Washington, D.C., and in rural Western Pennsylvania.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks changed the world, sparked two wars and cost trillions of dollars. The effects of those attacks will be felt for decades to come.

But the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 caused another kind of destruction that damaged America in ways that will be felt for years, and it too was focused in the Wall Street section of Manhattan, although there were co-conspirators across the country.

When it was reported last week that a federal agency was filing lawsuits against a dozen large banks over their roles in the financial crisis, the phrase “It’s about time” was probably the most common response.

For almost two years, many commentators have noted that nobody involved in the financial crisis has gone to jail. Nobody has been held responsible for the role they played.

There might be some small sense of satisfaction or a hope for accountability in the action by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in charging that some major banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, among others, failed to investigate the risks of the mortgages that were bundled and sold to investors.

Timing of the lawsuit came about a week before the three-year statute of limitations would have prevented the agency from filing claims against the banks. The lawsuit, which seeks billions of dollars in compensation, is the result of subpoenas that the agency issued a year ago to the major banks as part of an investigation into issues surrounding the creation and sale of mortgage-backed securities.

An article in the New York Times reported that in addition to this action by the housing oversight agency, the big banks that sold mortgage-backed securities also face legal action by 50 state attorneys general over their role in the crisis.

The Times article also noted that last month, American International Group filed a $10 billion lawsuit against Bank of America and its Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch divisions. AIG argues that the bank and its subsidiaries misrepresented the quality of the investments that the insurance giant bought.

Because of the questionable mortgages that were packaged and sold — and have defaulted at higher-than-normal rates — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have lost an estimated $30 billion. And as federally backed companies, most of those losses have had to be covered by U.S. taxpayers.

Though it has taken time to reach this point, most taxpayers will welcome legal action and the prospect of big financial penalties for banks involved in the mortgage investment mess because it represents some level of accountability for packaging and selling investments that were known to be much more risky than advertised.

But rather than sue the banks as institutions and public companies, it would be more effective if individual bankers, meaning CEOs and top executives at major banks as well as mortgage companies, were targets of federal lawsuits.

If these banks are found guilty, the penalties will come at the expense of shareholders. If, however, individual bankers and other financial services executives were found guilty of fraud or other crimes and forced to pay meaningful financial penalties or were sentenced to 10 years or more in prison, it might have a more profound effect in preventing future abuses.

The financial crisis had no single cause.

Bankers, mortgage banks, investors, rating agencies, mortgage brokers and homebuyers who bought more expensive homes than they could afford or provided bogus information to lenders, as well as greed across the board, all were factors in bringing about the crisis.

But federal legal action against big banks is a good place to start in establishing accountability — and penalties for wrongdoing.