County lines drug trafficking

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Public ad campaign about county lines trafficking

In the United Kingdom, the county lines drug supply model is the practice of trafficking drugs into rural areas and smaller towns, away from major cities.[1][2] Criminal gangs recruit and exploit vulnerable children, sometimes including children in pupil referral units and those who have been excluded from school, and exploit them to deal drugs.[3] Some young people are recruited via debt bondage, whereby they enter county lines to pay off drug debts.[4][5][6] Many of these activities are forms of modern slavery.[7]

The term "county lines" is used where illegal drugs are transported from one area to another, often across police and local authority boundaries.[8] Lines refers to the phone numbers, or deal lines, dedicated to this activity.[9] The practice is also known by those involved as "going country" ("cunch") or "going OT" ("outta town").[10][11]

Scale

Between the years of 2018 to 2019, National Crime Agency figures showed there were 1,500 drug trafficking routes of this sort in the United Kingdom,[1] rising to 3,000;[12] in that year the agency estimated the total turnover of county lines activities throughout the UK to be roughly £500 million.[13] A 2020 report for the Home Office by Dame Carol Black states that the county lines drug trade involved 27,000 young people in the UK.[14][15] The majority of county lines come from the Metropolitan Police service area taking 15% of the market, followed by the West Midlands Police area at 9% and Merseyside at 7%.[16]

Children are coerced and manipulated to join via the promise of big money. The level of violence increased significantly post-COVID in 2020.[17]

Causes

In 2019, Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, blamed cuts in police numbers for the rise of county lines gangs.[18]

Also in 2019, police said that they lacked the resources to tackle county lines.[19] They mentioned cuts to youth services may have been a contributing factor. They mentioned it was difficult to get the funding.

There is now a county lines operation unit run by the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre. Jointly run by the National Crime Agency and National Police Chiefs' Council, it opened in September 2019. It is thought that it has helped to find suspects and help victims of drug trafficking.[20]

Black's 2020 report traces the causes of the phenomenon to a combination of government cuts in youth services and drug recovery services, absence of parents, poor parenting, increased child poverty, school exclusions, and availability of purer forms of drugs.[14][15][21] Furthermore, it has become evident that drug dealers target children in poor areas or children that have a troubled family life or only parent at home.[16]

Response

In 2018, a drug dealer, Zakaria Mohammed, age 21, from Aston, was convicted of offences under the Modern Slavery Act relating to "county lines" activities.[22]

In 2018, The Children's Society, a British charity, criticised what it said was an inconsistent approach by professionals working with children, being concerned that, while some police and social workers viewed the practice as child exploitation, others treated vulnerable young people solely as criminals.[23]

In the same year Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, set up a "rescue and response" programme, which in its first year referred 568 young people to support channels. In 2019, he said that more than 4,000 children and young people had been found to have links with county lines activities.[18]

In October 2019, a nationwide police crackdown led to the arrests of 700 people alleged to be connected to county lines trafficking.[24]

A 2019 episode of the UK TV series Vera entitled "Cuckoo" was based around a "county lines" storyline; as per the story title, that episode also included the related topic of cuckooing, which roughly translates as taking over another person's property for the purposes of drug supply.[25] In November 2019, Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks announced that they would be featuring an issue-led storyline inspired by the county lines trafficking beginning in December of that year. The year-long storyline sees teenagers Juliet Nightingale (Niamh Blackshaw) and Sid Sumner (Billy Price) manipulated by Jordan Price (Connor Calland) and Victor Brothers (Benjamin O'Mahoney) into selling drugs in and near their village.[26]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b McGoogan, Cara (1 October 2018). "Airbnb and Uber urged to act on teenage drug mules". the Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  2. ^ "County Lines - National Crime Agency". www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  3. ^ Rawlinson, Kevin (28 September 2018). "'County lines' drug gangs recruit excluded schoolchildren – report". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  4. ^ Robinson, Grace; McLean, Robert; Densley, James (19 October 2018). "Working County Lines: Child Criminal Exploitation and Illicit Drug Dealing in Glasgow and Merseyside" (PDF). International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. 63 (5): 694–711. doi:10.1177/0306624x18806742. ISSN 0306-624X. PMID 30338710. S2CID 53015950.
  5. ^ Robinson, Grace; Densley, James; McLean, Robert (2018). "County lines: the dark realities of life for teenage drug runners". The Conversation. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
  6. ^ Ireland, Carol A; Lewis, Michael; Lopez, Anthony C; Ireland, Jane L, eds. (2020). The Handbook of Collective Violence (PDF). doi:10.4324/9780429197420. ISBN 9780429197420.
  7. ^ "Criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults: county lines (accessible version)". GOV.UK. Retrieved 28 April 2024.
  8. ^ "County Lines". www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk. National Crime Agency. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
  9. ^ Otte, Jedidajah (18 October 2019). "Police arrest more than 700 in UK-wide county lines drug crackdown". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
  10. ^ Storrod, Michelle L.; Densley, James A. (28 November 2016). "'Going viral' and 'Going country': the expressive and instrumental activities of street gangs on social media". Journal of Youth Studies. 20 (6): 677–696. doi:10.1080/13676261.2016.1260694. ISSN 1367-6261. S2CID 151516320.
  11. ^ "What It's Really Like 'Going Country'". Vice. 28 November 2017. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  12. ^ Grierson, Jamie; Walker, Amy (13 April 2020). "Gangs still forcing children into 'county lines' drug trafficking". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  13. ^ Grierson, Jamie (29 January 2019). "'County lines': huge scale of £500m drug industry revealed". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  14. ^ a b "Drugs trade has 'never caused greater harm to society', landmark report finds". The Independent. 28 February 2020. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  15. ^ a b Black, Carol (February 2020). "Review of drugs: phase one report". GOV.UK. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  16. ^ a b "'County lines': huge scale of £500m drug industry revealed". The Guardian. 29 January 2019. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
  17. ^ Charles Hymas (16 June 2021). "Rape and ripping out fingernails: the extraordinary violence used by county lines gangs to exploit children". The Telegraph. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  18. ^ a b Busby, Mattha (19 September 2019). "County lines gangs linked to police cuts, says Sadiq Khan". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
  19. ^ "Police say they lack resources to tackle county lines drugs networks". The Guardian. 5 June 2019. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
  20. ^ "Police say they lack resources to tackle county lines drugs networks". 5 June 2019.
  21. ^ "Illegal drugs 'almost as easy to get as pizza'". BBC News. 27 February 2020. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  22. ^ "Drug dealer who trafficked children jailed". BBC News. 4 October 2018.
  23. ^ "What is county lines?". The Children's Society. 8 March 2018. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
  24. ^ "County lines gangs: Police arrest 700 people in UK-wide crackdown". Sky News. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  25. ^ "Review: Vera (S9 E2/4)". The Killing Times. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
  26. ^ "Hollyoaks reveals details of explosive County Lines drug storyline". Digital Spy. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
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