County lines: a co-ordinated Welsh community response to child criminal exploitation

End of project summary

Main Messages

Background 

There has been increasing attention on child criminal exploitation (CCE) over the last decade. Much of what is known about CCE relates to county lines, a model of drug supply where individuals, groups or organised criminal gangs manipulate or coerce children and vulnerable adults into transporting and storing drugs and money. However, the current lack of a statutory definition leads to inconsistencies regarding how organisations define and understand child criminal exploitation. This project addresses these inconsistencies by contributing to the knowledge base within the Welsh context and was aimed at developing a toolkit to enhance practitioner and community responses to CCE. 

Method 

The project adopted an exploratory design with three phases. 

1. Interviews and focus groups were undertaken between October 2020 and May 2021 with 21 children, 15 parents who had direct experience of criminal exploitation and 56 professionals from statutory and non-statutory organisations across Wales.
2. Drawing on action research principles, the project advisory group engaged in collaborative critical reflection on project findings in an emergent process to develop the toolkit. The group comprised young people, parents and professionals who had direct experience of CCE.
3. The project advisory group and other stakeholders co-produced the toolkit in an iterative process of development and refinement. 

Main findings 

• CCE manifests in three main ways in Wales: county lines, blurred lines (where local groups mimic county lines) and localised dealing.
• The term county lines detracted attention from children who are exploited by family members, local individuals or groups even where these groups were adopting a similar model and levels of violence as the county lines groups.
• The presence of gendered notions poses the risk that sexually exploited boys and criminally exploited girls will not be identified or safeguarded.
• Children were exploited due to the promise of financial gain and the assertion that making money through dealing drugs is easy. This served to minimise their perceptions regarding the risks and dangers inherent in their involvement.
• At the child level, consideration is needed regarding school inclusion and exclusion practices. This may include training for teachers and other professionals in CCE and the early identification of children’s needs so they can be supported to remain in school.
• At the family level, the challenges of parenting adolescents and the impact of exploitation of parents and siblings must be addressed. This may include the development and provision of whole-family approaches aimed at increasing the knowledge of CCE and strengthening parent-child relationships.
• At the system level, a more nuanced approach to the binary distinction of victim and perpetrator is needed, the inclusion of child and family voices and collaborative decision-making and the development of flexible service provision equipped to work with extrafamilial risk and harm to adolescents.
• At the community level, there needs to be the creation and maintenance of safe spaces and places for children, the gathering of intelligence that can be used to identify adaptations to the county lines models and the development of appropriate preventative and safeguarding strategies. 

The project culminated in a CCE toolkit and assessment form for practitioners and a website for parents.