A report from the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s (NPCC) National County Lines Coordination Centre (NCLCC) late last year found that the traditional county lines business model was changing, with activity now starting to become much more localised.
A 12 per cent drop in ‘external lines’ – activity that crossed a policy force boundary – was accompanied by a significant increase in lines that began and ended within a single force’s boundary.
The NCLCC estimates that there are almost 1,500 organised crime groups linked to county lines activity, which continues to be dominated by street or ‘burner’ phone sales of crack or heroin. Despite a perceived drop in the number of children involved, the basic county lines model still involves widespread child criminal exploitation as well as child sexual exploitation. The Home Office estimates that around 14,500 children were identified as at risk of, or involved in, child criminal exploitation last year. ‘We know this is likely to be a significant underestimate,’ it acknowledges.
EXTREME VIOLENCE
Transporting drugs, or selling drugs directly to customers, puts children ‘in the most dangerous role within the supply chain’, says the NCLCC – ‘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.’ The stark reality of the situation was highlighted in a harrowing 2021 report from the University of Nottingham, which described how county lines activity was becoming characterised by more and more extreme violence and sexual exploitation (DDN, July/August 2021, page 5), with young people often controlled through the harbouring of sexually explicit images, along with widespread sexual abuse of both females and males
The Youth Justice Board’s (YJB) Serious incidents report from earlier this year also highlighted the fact that children involved in serious incidents are often the victims of the ‘challenging circumstances in which they live’. While this didn’t ‘diminish the significant impact that these children can have on others’, said the board’s CEO Stephanie Roberts-Bibby, it did underscore the need to ‘address their vulnerabilities and exploitation, and to ensure effective early intervention to safeguard them from harm’.
There were almost 440 serious incidents notified to the board in 2023-24, involving nearly 550 children, and more than 40 per cent of the children notified were said to be ‘gang affiliated, criminally exploited, or involved with the national referral mechanism (NRM) process’ (designed to identify victims of modern slavery). More than half of the notifications were for GBH, with 13 per cent for murder or manslaughter, 9 per cent for attempted murder and 16 per cent for rape. Eighteen per cent of the murder/manslaughter incidents, 23 per cent of attempted murder incidents and 10 per cent of ‘death of a child’ incidents were ‘potentially gang or county lines related’, the document adds.
DEBT BONDAGE
One of the key reasons that the scale of child criminal exploitation linked to county lines is highly likely to be under-reported is that victims frequently ‘do not see themselves as such’, says the NCLCC report. Those most at risk of exploitation by county lines gangs remain boys aged between 15 and 17, usually ‘groomed with the promise of money and gifts and then exploited, forced or trapped into day-to-day drug dealing by debt bondage or threat of violence’. The boys describe ‘being trafficked to trap houses across the country, deprived of food, heat and any comforts, and being required to forego sleep to respond to orders 24/7’, it continues. Children are frequently robbed, including by associates of the same people they work for, then forced to work more to pay off the ‘debt’.
Added to this, of course, is the significant problem of ‘cuckooing’, where often-vulnerable adults have their homes taken over by the gangs to sell or store drugs (DDN, May, page 6). In cuckooed premises there is a rise in video diaries being shared on social media platforms, the NCLCC report states. These will ‘often be of vulnerable adults (male or female) who visibly present suffering from the effects of long-term drug addiction and/or poor mental health’ with the videos showing them being ‘abused, laughed at, violently assaulted, made to clean up or perform in a demeaning way.’
Recording of cuckooing varies from force to force, with limited datasets meaning that the true scale is hard to assess. However, ‘some indication’ can be taken from the fact that almost 730 drug lines are currently recorded as using cuckooing as part of their modus operandi, says NCLCC, while almost 1,300 properties where cuckooing had been either reported or suspected were visited during this year’s ‘county lines intensification week’ in March – a figure largely unchanged from last year.
NEW OFFENCES
While new specific offences for both cuckooing and child criminal exploitation form part of the government’s crime and policing bill (DDN, March, page 4), the NCLCC report stresses that policing needs to ensure it ‘consistently recognises and responds appropriately to vulnerability and exploitation’, particularly in light of the shift towards a more localised model.
So how much of an impact are the new specific offences likely to have in terms of getting to grip with the problem? ‘We believe the new offences of child criminal exploitation and cuckooing in the crime and policing bill will have an impact on tackling county lines,’ an NPCC spokesperson tells DDN. ‘It will be much clearer that these are crimes and therefore assist in identifying and responding to that offending.’
However the changing county lines model – with fewer young people crossing force boundaries – may mean that it’s ‘harder to identify children who are being exploited locally’, the NPCC adds. ‘This could be because the warning signs are not so obvious – for example missing episodes are shorter, and/or they are reported missing less.’
It also remains unclear whether this shift represents a permanent trend. ‘We are actively working on a new threat assessment at the moment, which we hope to publish towards the end of the summer,’ the NPCC tells DDN. ‘However, early indications are that the threat has remained relatively stable for the last 12 months, and therefore the localisation of the model has not advanced much further since that last report.’
IMPROVED TRAINING
The need for better training for police and other professionals was one of the key themes of a 2022 report from criminal justice consultancy Crest Advisory (DDN, October 2022, page 4), as agencies were frequently missing the ‘red flags’ indicating children were at risk of exploitation, it said. The document included 13 detailed case studies, with common features including domestic abuse, drug misuse, and periods of going missing. The Children’s Society has also previously warned about inconsistencies in the approach of professionals working with children, with some recognising county lines activity as exploitation and others viewing the young people simply as criminals.
So is that perception becoming less common now – is there more awareness among frontline officers, and are they less likely to miss the red flags that might indicate the young people are potentially being exploited? ‘There is a much greater perception of child victims of criminal exploitation amongst police officers and this is reflected in the large reduction in arrests and prosecution of children, particularly for drug supply offences,’ says the NPCC spokesperson. ‘It is also shown in the large number of safeguarding referrals, where policing is identifying those at risk of child criminal exploitation and then making referrals to statutory and non-statutory specialist provision to get them support and safeguarded.
‘We need to continue to educate children and young people so that they understand what grooming looks and feels like, understand how they may be exploited and help to build resilience against the threat of county lines gangs who wish to exploit children.’
Youth Justice Board Serious incidents annual report 2023-24 available here
County lines strategic threat risk assessment available here