Criminal Liability for Deaths in Prison Custody: The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007

This article explores a provision of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, which has been neglected by criminologists and legal scholars – the application of the legislation to deaths in custody. The article argues that proving the liability of a prison based on the definition of ‘senior management’ in the Act may reflect the problems associated with establishing the guilt of corporate bodies under the common law identification principle and that the ‘senior management’ test may nullify the intent of Section 2(1)(d) and undermine the capacity of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to convict a prison for an avoidable death in custody