“Joint enterprise allows the prosecution to use a racist ‘gang narrative’ to imply guilt and persuade juries using prejudicial stereotypes in place of cold, hard evidence, often described as Russian roulette”
Kim Johnson MP
The Criminal Justice Bill returned to parliament this week, with MPs debating a range of measures in the Tories’ proposed overhaul to the criminal justice system. Read a published version of Kim Johnson MP‘s speech on ending the miscarriages of justice from joint enterprise below.
This Criminal Justice Bill is incredibly dangerous in its intent, with many draconian amendments seeking to criminalise homelessness, further restrict peaceful protest, and vastly expand police surveillance powers.
These are all Draconian attempts by this Tory government to clamp down on dissent instead of dealing with the popular anger across the country against its attacks on working people and the most vulnerable in our society, and I oppose them in their entirety and urge my colleagues across the house to do the same today.
But today I want to focus on my New Clause 28, which continues the campaign to fix the law on joint enterprise that I began with the support of the amazing campaigners at Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA), Liberty and many others with my private members bill back in February. I was grateful to receive the support of nearly 40 colleagues who backed this amendment, as well as a commitment from my own front bench back in February for Labour to reform joint enterprise as and when we get into power.
As it stands, a charge of joint enterprise too often leads to an assumption of guilt in the courtroom. The defendant is forced to prove their innocence – turning our justice system on its head. This is a failure of our justice system – supposedly the best in the world – and an affront to the taxpayer who is left footing the bill for sloppy sentencing.
My amendment today would enshrine in law that only where a person is proven to have significantly contributed to a crime can they be prosecuted under joint enterprise. This would raise the bar for prosecution and provide the jury with the tools to differentiate between defendants who deserve to face a mandatory life sentence for the role they played in a serious crime, and those who do not.
This is a miscarriage of justice worse than the post office Horizon scandal, because it involves children as young as 13 being convicted and incarcerated for a crime they did not commit, and given whole life sentence, with little or no option for appeal.
Campaigning by JENGbA and Liberty led to a 6 month pilot data collection project by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who have now agreed to fully and permanently roll out the scheme. The analysis of the original data revealed that over half of those prosecuted under joint enterprise were aged under 25 and black youth are 16 times more likely to be prosecuted under joint enterprise laws than their white counterparts, and I personally welcome the commitment from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to further investigate these disparities.
The evidence clearly shows that this legislation is being widely used as a drag net to maximise convictions, you only have to scrutinise the daily court lists for the Old Bailey to witness how widespread this is.
Joint enterprise allows the prosecution to use a racist ‘gang narrative’ to imply guilt and persuade juries using prejudicial stereotypes in place of cold, hard evidence, often described as Russian roulette, Human rights group Liberty submitted one such case last year to the Criminal Cases Review Commission after 11 defendants, all Black, were collectively convicted and sentenced to a total of 168 years in prison for a single murder. Evidence included a rap video made online a year earlier, photos of some of the defendants using hand signs, and the alleged favouring of the colour red.
I hope they do a better job than they did for the Malkinson case,
In this and similar cases, the prosecution called police officers as ‘experts’ to give their opinions on alleged ‘gang culture.’ A concept that still evades legal definition, but one which carries with it racist stereotypes intended to sway a jury, and extremely prejudicial when considering the relationship the police have with the black community , when Black people are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system.
New data from experts at Manchester Metropolitan University has revealed that nearly £250 million is spent each year on processing defendants in joint enterprise cases. For the 1,088 people on average convicted under joint enterprise every single year, the total future punishment costs to the taxpayer is a colossal £1.2 billion. With prisons not only chronically overcrowded but unsafe, as highlighted by the prisons inspectorate urgent notifications of Wandsworth and other prisons, and with violent crime on the rise, enough is enough – joint enterprise is costly and ineffective and its time for a change in the law.
If the social cost of joint enterprise wasn’t conclusive, the economic cost must be the final nail in the coffin for this shocking miscarriage of justice. It has been a decade since the evidence was first presented to Parliament. Yet our prisons are dangerously overflowing and failing to rehabilitate and the taxpayer is still footing the bill for thousands of people who have been wrongly jailed for the crime of another. If someone does not make a significant contribution to a crime they should not be prosecuted for it. It’s as simple as that.
Joint enterprise is a stain on our justice system and must be reviewed and changed to stop the dragnet. It is possible to both uphold justice for the victims of crime, and to put an end to this injustice.
- Kim Johnson MP is the MP for Liverpool Riverside, you can follow her on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram and Tik Tok.
- This article is an edited version of the speech given by Kim Johnson MP in the debate held on the Criminal Justice Bill on May 15th, 2024.
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