Group Crime and Why Its Classification Matters
Criminal charges often rest on the group form of an offence, because a person's role and the character of their participation in a joint crime directly determine the scope of the accusation and the likely sentence. The general part of the Criminal Code of Georgia regulates this field through a complete system of norms: it defines perpetration, the elements of complicity, the types of accomplice, the rules for distributing liability, perpetrator excess, and the forms of group crime. For the defense these norms are the decisive instrument: on the same facts one person may be treated as a perpetrator and another merely as an abettor, and that difference is reflected in both the charge and the punishment.