County lines operations are shifting from their traditional business model to become more localised, according to a report from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the National County Lines Coordination Centre (NCLCC).
‘External’ lines – that cross a police force boundary – are down by 12 per cent, while lines that begin and end within a single force boundary are up by more than 230 per cent, the document states. ‘The county lines threat has become more localised, with fewer lines running outside force boundaries and fewer children recorded by the police as involved in any capacity,’ it says.
There are almost 1,500 organised crime groups linked to county lines activity, with three out of four county lines offenders having previous convictions for violence and/or possession of weapons. The county lines market continues to be dominated by on-street or ‘burner’ phone sales of heroin and crack cocaine, the report says – substances that are rarely available on social media accounts advertising drugs.
‘The county lines threat remains stable, following intensive policing activity, focussed on tackling county lines from the four exporter cities of London, Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester and on the rail network, alongside education and multi-agency intervention work with those at risk of, or being, exploited,’ says the document. ‘This is despite the overall threat from drugs increasing, as cocaine production remains high, pricing consistent with high profit margins, and nitazenes increasing the risk to users. Law enforcement activity has made the enterprise riskier for criminals.’
Despite fewer children and more adults being recorded as having county lines involvement between April last year and March this year, the business model ‘continues to involve child criminal exploitation, as well as child sexual exploitation’, the report points out. ‘Children going missing is a fundamental feature, where they are trafficked to work on drug lines at the sharp end, as drug runners transporting and selling drugs directly to users. This puts them in the most dangerous role within the supply chain, possessing valuable cash and commodity that other criminals may seek to steal, and with potential for violent conflict linked to the drugs operations, particularly over territory.’
A 2021 report from the University of Nottingham said that county lines activity was becoming characterised by rising levels of ‘extreme’ violence and sexual exploitation, with young people coerced into the gangs via online grooming and controlled through the harbouring of sexually explicit images, along with sexual abuse of both males and females.
‘One of our priorities has been to enable police officers to recognise the signs of exploitation when encountering young people involved in county lines so that they are able to safeguard those being exploited via these violent criminal gangs,’ said NPCC lead for county lines, Commander Paul Brogden. ‘Identifying potential indicators of vulnerability at an early stage gives policing the opportunity for early intervention, which could mean a referral to statutory and/or specialist support provision. We know the county lines drugs supply business model continues to exploit children and vulnerable adults, so we must continue working across the country to effectively tackle this cross-border crime.’
County lines strategic threat risk assessment available here