Joint enterprise in England and Wales: Why problems persist despite legal change

The law in England and Wales (as in Australia and a small number of other jurisdictions) enables a person to be convicted of an offence committed by another using secondary liability, sometimes termed ‘joint enterprise’. In England and Wales, joint enterprise has been widely criticised, for: failing to distinguish between the moral and legal culpability of the person who commits the substantive offence and those on the periphery of it; being used disproportionality in cases involving young minoritized men;, and for lacking legal legitimacy. Thus, it was hoped that the abolition of the extended form of joint enterprise – known as Parasitic Accessorial Liability (PAL) – by the Supreme Court of England and Wales, in 2016, would rectify these issues. Reporting on interviews with police detectives, and prosecution and defence lawyers in England involved in cases of serious youth violence, this paper argues that, despite the change in the law, the issues associated with ‘joint enterprise’ in England and Wales remain. This is due to practitioners’ lack of clarity when applying key legal terms and their continued reliance on racialised inferences about young men from black and mixed ethnic backgrounds. We suggest changes in practice are required, alongside more meaningful law reform.