The Pains of Hope: Lived Experiences of Legal Reform Ten Years After Jogee

The 2016 Supreme Court decision in R v Jogee was widely celebrated as a landmark correction of the law governing joint enterprise convictions. While the ruling generated hope for many, its limited retrospective impact has largely gone unexamined. Drawing on 12 narrative interviews with mothers and sons affected by joint enterprise, this article explores the emotional trajectory of hope raised and subsequently dashed following Jogee. I argue that moments of apparent legal reform can generate ‘pains of hope’: psychological and emotional harms arising when expectations of justice are temporarily restored but ultimately unattainable. This study contributes to socio-legal scholarship by showing how limited legal reform can inadvertently reproduce harm, while also highlighting forms of resilience and resistance that persist despite disillusionment.