Joint enterprise convictions in England and Wales have tripled since 1980s, report finds | Law
Joint venture litigation in England and Wales has increased rapidly over the past four decades, according to a report calling for changes to the law so that individuals can be held solely responsible for their own actions.
The Center for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) also found that penalties have become harsher under the legal doctrine that allows individuals to be convicted of crimes they did not physically commit if they were present at the scene or in a relationship with the actual criminal.
The report argues that prosecutors have deviated from a commonsense distinction between those who caused death and those who may only be responsible for lesser crimes, leading to a “batch party” approach to prosecution that means minor role players are convicted of the serious crimes of others.
The authors found that the number of homicide cases involving three or more defendants tripled between 1984 and 2024, from 18 to 54 cases per year and now accounts for approximately 10% of all homicide investigations.
It found that 42% of defendants convicted of manslaughter in multi-defendant cases where they were not considered the main suspect, excluding life sentences, were sentenced to more than 10 years in prison in 2022, compared to 7% in 2012. One of the recommendations of the CCJS is that there should be a separate, less harsh sentencing framework for secondary parties.
Helen Mills, CCJS program director and co-author of the report, said: “There are clear limits to what can be achieved through legal challenges and individual submissions alone. With the Law Commission now reviewing murder laws and the government expressing its commitment to fixing a broken justice system, there is a unique opportunity to move beyond the current impasse. We need some nuance to ensure people are actually held to account for what they have done, rather than an unfair, business party approach.”
The report says the prosecutorial approach and the law need to change, given that multiple suspect murder cases were described as “exceptional” in the 1960s but are now the systematic norm in which defendants are disproportionately young, male and black.
The report reveals that nearly 40% of those convicted in murder cases involving four or more people were between the ages of 18 and 24. While it is rare for children to be convicted of murder, just over half of all children under 16 convicted of murder since 2010 were in cases with more than one defendant, the highest rate of any age group, without a primary suspect, according to the report.
The CCJS found that blacks were convicted three times more often than whites in class trials involving four or more defendants; This mirrored the Crown Prosecution Service’s own joint venture monitoring data published last year.
The authors identify three priorities for potential reform. These are: Narrowing the scope of the law through an applicable test for determining when someone can be held responsible for the crimes of another; a separate sentencing framework for secondary parties to ensure proportionate punishment; and greater transparency, requiring prosecutors to specify each defendant’s individual conduct and intent and identify possible alternative charges.
A 2016 high court decision found that the law had been misapplied for more than 30 years and that the bar had been set too low in terms of the requisite intent of secondary defendants; This gave rise to the hope of course correction; but the CCJS says this has no lasting impact on the number of multi-defendant murder investigations.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “We are aware of concerns about joint ventures so we are keeping the legislation under review.
“There are currently several reviews ongoing in this area and any reform should be informed by their findings.”
