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County lines: Are UK drug laws fuelling grooming and child exploitation? [1]

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Date: 2023-04

The UK has a serious child exploitation crisis. County lines – the term that has come to describe the use of children by drug-dealing gangs – is on the rise. And many believe our drug policies are to blame.

The exact scale of the problem is unknown. In 2018, the Children’s Commissioner for England estimated that 50,000 children nationwide were involved, but that figure is likely to be higher now. While there hasn’t been a study on the same scale since, the Home Office had 589 county lines referrals between April and June 2022 (the latest quarterly data available) – the highest number since records began in 2009.

Both the pandemic – in which more vulnerable children were isolated at home, easily contactable by social media – and the cost of living crisis – where more young people are in need of money for food and clothes – have contributed to the crisis. But the UK’s drugs laws are the biggest factor, says former undercover drugs operative Neil Woods in a new film made for the Transform Drug Policy Foundation (TDPF).

“In a market that doesn’t shrink, organised crime always adapts,” Woods, now an activist for drug policy reform and a board member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership UK, told openDemocracy. The more successful police have become at arresting drug dealers, the more criminals refine their operations, which includes the efficient use of children.

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Children are not only easy to manipulate and easily replaced, but they are also much less likely to inform, making them particularly useful to gangs. Whereas a 21-year-old facing five years in prison may give up information to reduce their time, the police can’t bargain with children in the same way because sentencing laws are different. “They're not terrified of five years in prison because they're only 13, 14 or 15,” says Woods.

This is why, in 2021, the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act allowed police to use children as intelligence sources, a decision that legal charity Just for Kids Law tried to obstruct, with Woods’ help.

“From sources within policing and within regional intelligence units, I know there is a significant drive to recruit children as informants to tackle county lines,” says Woods. “But children are already at risk, they’ve already been traumatised, to then use them as an informant… is a brutal thing to even contemplate.”

Sean Barker*, 35, was involved in county lines from the age of 12. At 15, he was arrested for possession of drugs, shortly after almost losing his life in a knife attack. Fortunately for him, though, the police who arrested him knew he had been exploited, vouched for him at court and, crucially, he says, “didn’t want any information from me whatsoever, all they cared about was that I was alive and safe”. He was allowed a ‘clean break’ and believes any child escaping criminal exploitation should be helped and safeguarded, not used as spies.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/grooming-county-lines-uk-drug-laws-fuelling-child-exploitation-policing/

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