Joint enterprise, ending crime or escalating jail rates?
In this day and age crime is crazy, a leap in crimes committed, the population is growing and so the demand for technology is increasing. This only results in more crime, more criminals and more witnesses. Joint enterprise is a new law recently re-introduced aiming to reduce the amount of criminals by acting as a deterrent, however it can result in punishment of the innocent. Joint enterprise is a topic in which experts have been debating about for decades. Some believe that joint enterprise is a form of human rights abuse whereas others think it is just. Joint enterprise in itself is a law which deems a bystander of a crime a criminal if they did not help in preventing the crime, or …show more content…
Despite this there are many downsides to joint enterprise, for example the fact that a bystander can be charged for a crime they did not commit/prevent, this goes against human instinct. Humans when placed in a situation which has a potential to risk their lives, such as witnessing a murder, have an instinct to either “fight or flight” – meaning they fight the risk, or flee from the risk. In this type of situation none of these options are viable, so the person would just freeze because of sheer shock. Furthermore the shock of witnessing a crime can be severe, in some cases causing post-traumatic stress.
So this means that there would be a high proportion of people who merely witnessed the event being charged under joint enterprise, as they could not react. This is a major problem with joint enterprise
In addition to this, not only does joint enterprise devastate families in addition to mis-convicting people but it also fills up our jails, and that money used to feed and house the mis-convicted is from our tax money.
Here are some prime examples of innocent people who have fallen victim to joint …show more content…
Cunliffe was convicted after supposedly witnessing the murder of Garry Newlove and not preventing it. However Jordan Cunliffe, 15 at the time, was awaiting a cornea transplant because of his rare eye condition. It was said he only had 10% of his vision and considered legally blind. Garry Newlove was murdered by a single kick to his neck, which was fatal due to him having a surgical implant there. The lead-up to this murder was after a few boys drank to much and newlove left his home to confront them after suspecting them of van-dalising his wife’s car.
There have been some good cases of joint enterprise that actually have succeeded, like the one of Sofyen Belamouadden in which 20 teenagers faced charges of murder after being accused of mur-dering sofyen belamouadden. There was four trials which lasted a total of 21 months. 19 of which were sentenced to jail, 3 being cleared. “This was the most people charged over a single killing in Britain” according to the independent.
This brings us to a question, is joint enterprise successful? In my opinion it is a double edged sword. It has the capability to put innocent people in jail with ease, waste judges time, our tax money and ruin live of people. On the other hand it cuts down on criminal activity, deterring would-be
In this day and age crime is crazy, a leap in crimes committed, the population is growing and so the demand for technology is increasing. This only results in more crime, more criminals and more witnesses. Joint enterprise is a new law recently re-introduced aiming to reduce the amount of criminals by acting as a deterrent, however it can result in punishment of the innocent. Joint enterprise is a topic in which experts have been debating about for decades. Some believe that joint enterprise is a form of human rights abuse whereas others think it is just. Joint enterprise in itself is a law which deems a bystander of a crime a criminal if they did not help in preventing the crime, or …show more content…
Despite this there are many downsides to joint enterprise, for example the fact that a bystander can be charged for a crime they did not commit/prevent, this goes against human instinct. Humans when placed in a situation which has a potential to risk their lives, such as witnessing a murder, have an instinct to either “fight or flight” – meaning they fight the risk, or flee from the risk. In this type of situation none of these options are viable, so the person would just freeze because of sheer shock. Furthermore the shock of witnessing a crime can be severe, in some cases causing post-traumatic stress.
So this means that there would be a high proportion of people who merely witnessed the event being charged under joint enterprise, as they could not react. This is a major problem with joint enterprise
In addition to this, not only does joint enterprise devastate families in addition to mis-convicting people but it also fills up our jails, and that money used to feed and house the mis-convicted is from our tax money.
Here are some prime examples of innocent people who have fallen victim to joint …show more content…
Cunliffe was convicted after supposedly witnessing the murder of Garry Newlove and not preventing it. However Jordan Cunliffe, 15 at the time, was awaiting a cornea transplant because of his rare eye condition. It was said he only had 10% of his vision and considered legally blind. Garry Newlove was murdered by a single kick to his neck, which was fatal due to him having a surgical implant there. The lead-up to this murder was after a few boys drank to much and newlove left his home to confront them after suspecting them of van-dalising his wife’s car.
There have been some good cases of joint enterprise that actually have succeeded, like the one of Sofyen Belamouadden in which 20 teenagers faced charges of murder after being accused of mur-dering sofyen belamouadden. There was four trials which lasted a total of 21 months. 19 of which were sentenced to jail, 3 being cleared. “This was the most people charged over a single killing in Britain” according to the independent.
This brings us to a question, is joint enterprise successful? In my opinion it is a double edged sword. It has the capability to put innocent people in jail with ease, waste judges time, our tax money and ruin live of people. On the other hand it cuts down on criminal activity, deterring would-be