County Lines

The 2019 National Crime Agency report on county lines estimates there are around 2,000 active county lines operating in the UK.

These organised crime networks exploit young people to store, move, sell and deliver their drugs, often making them travel across counties.

Drugs gangs operating in these areas are increasingly seeking to exploit local young people, using younger children because they are cheaper, more easily controlled and less likely to be picked up by the police. This is done through deception, intimidation, violence, debt bondage and/or grooming.

Sexual exploitation is also used in gangs to exert power and control over members or initiate young people into the gang. Sexual activity can also be used for status or protection, or used as a weapon and inflicted as sexual assault.

Vulnerable young people, for example, those who are homeless or living in care, have special educational needs or mental health problems, are targeted by gangs and are recruited, often via social media.

Gangs also look for young people with emotional vulnerability, such as those experiencing problems at home, absent or busy parents or bereavement, and then seek and fill that emotional gap and become ‘their family’, then take advantage of them.

Due to austerity there are fewer youth clubs and there is less provision for our young people, this creates a vacuum. Young people, some children younger than 10 are turning to gangs for friendship and protection. They then find themselves forced into illegal activities, notably selling and trafficking illegal drugs and find it difficult or impossible to leave.