Body map storytelling: exploring identity with lifers convicted of murder using the doctrine of ‘joint enterprise’

Being convicted of murder can shatter an individual’s sense of identity, as they question who they are if they are capable of this and struggle to weave the offence into the fabric of their life story. This psychological tumult occurs against a cultural backdrop in which the label ‘murderer’ ‘obliterate[s] all other dimensions of the person’. The process of reconciling a murder conviction with one’s sense of self is more complicated for those who have been convicted of murder as a ‘secondary party’. Such convictions are made possible by the law of complicity (commonly referred to as ‘joint enterprise’), which allows a person to be convicted of an offence perpetrated by someone else (the principal party), if they intended to ‘assist or encourage’ them. In practice, prosecutors can charge all individuals with the same offence even if they cannot identify who was a principle party and who was a secondary party. In England and Wales, estimates suggest that thousands of people have been prosecuted for homicide in cases involving multiple defendants since 2005, and research shows that a disproportionate number of men convicted of serious violence using joint enterprise are Black or Mixed Race.