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The WeCops chat on Wednesday 25th November focussed on county lines – in particular whether a national strategy is needed to tackle it. The chat was hosted by Joe Caluori, Head of Research and Policy at Crest Advisory @JoeCaluori and @WeCops host Dr. Emma Williams. Joe Caluori wrote a pre-read blog ahead of the chat setting out some of the key findings from Crest’s research into Looked after Children and County Lines.

According to many practitioners, county lines and related issues underpin many of the growing problems with serious violence in UK cities, particularly amongst young people. Issues related to county lines impact at a local, force wide and national level and the effect of some of the localised issues such as visible drug dealing, anti-social behaviour and ‘urban gangs’ can leave communities feeling unsafe. Furthermore, the targeting of vulnerable young people as potential sellers in this space presents complex safeguarding issues for the police and their partner agencies. The need for all partners to recognise their role in both early intervention and enforcement is vital.

Given the suggested changes to the structure of some county line arrangements due to the current pandemic this @wecops chat was timely to have. It was excellent to have individuals from national agencies such as the NCA and local community officers involved in the conversation. From the local identification of drug issues and risk through to the national approach to organised crime gangs, it is essential that all those involved work together on this. It is this action that will effectively support dealing with the problems that county lines present.

The first question was ‘How have the structures of ‘County Lines’ changed over time and has violence increased locally?’

@Snash6414 agreed that the threat from county lines was evolving quickly with the consensus view amongst other participants that violence is also increasing in dealing bases. Drug issues, locally, are thought to have been deprioritised over the last 10 years. Local drug analysis desks have been disbanded and this is thought to have impacted on local force understanding of the drug markets involved and where they link to middle markets. @Frankieoffrank said that the violence can escalate quickly as new county line groups attempt to enter the local markets due to competition and rivalry. It was suggested that growing awareness of the violence linked to county lines may be disguising the rapid growth in other areas of violence which is important not to ignore (domestic violence for example).

A and E departments are still considered to be ineffective in identifying incidents which may be linked to exploitation. New work involving youth workers being present in A and E sound promising and likewise we need to consider the reasons behind some young people’s decisions to carry weapons and where this links to potential exploitation, fear and vulnerability. @mark74brown raised the possibility that drug debts accrued during lockdown may be the cause of a subsequent spike in violence. NCA Director @NCA_LynneOwens agreed that violence was linked to drug supply and emphasised that better flagging and identification of county lines linked offences locally would help understand the nature of the links to middle and wider markets. The National County Lines Coordination Centre are working on a data flagging system which will help collate relevant data around the prevalence and nature of county lines. There was agreement concerning the difficulty of joining up data sets between health, police and local authorities as a barrier to understanding the nature and scale of the violence associated with county lines. The key role of local community officers was also considered paramount to the understanding of local problems, risks and indeed the changes (and implications of those) to the market at the current time.

The second question was – ‘What problems do the police encounter working between force areas and local authorities?’

@EmWilliamsOU started by flagging the challenge created by different local authorities using different methodologies to flag extra familial risk in relation to contextual safeguarding. @GorillaoJustice agreed that social services at councils speak a similar language but have different safeguarding approaches to the police. @notlistenning1 said that cross border information sharing has always been difficult between police forces and @PCRotherham described how surprised he was on joining the police to discover that there is not one shared database. There were suggestions about a genuine national police national computer. @SuptMarshall argued that as different forces give different levels of prioritisation to county lines a national strategy and subsequent guidelines may be needed to provide the necessary consistency between areas and agencies. @CraigNaylorNCA agreed with @JoeCaluori that children in care being moved across LA boundaries to private homes with no link to local services is an issue, leaving a big intelligence gap for forces. @westieross pointed out that police and local authorities should be co-operating within Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance. However, the extent of the usefulness of this for safeguarding relating to child criminal exploitation through county lines was questioned. The core role of the public health approach to this problem was also explored and the need for an early preventative approach to these issues alongside enforcement which was broadly considered to be dealing with the symptoms of far wider societal issues.

The third question was ‘What options do police and partners have to deal with young people being exploited and groomed by County Drug Lines?’

@PCRotherham suggested that the response is inhibited by fears over data protection and GDPR. @Jamessenior209 added that there are so many different teams with different names in different forces it’s hard to know who to speak to when dealing with a young person. The current NRM process was criticised. @PSRyanPowell complained that it does not feed into social services at local councils; others criticised the delays and lack of support at the end of the journey. @GorillaoJustice argued that the police shouldn’t be afraid to use the criminal justice and ‘consensual disruption’ to get kids out of exploitation as they are unlikely to seek help themselves without a reachable moment. @snash6414 agreed that the willingness of a young person to cooperate is key as many refuse to accept they have been exploited. @mark74brown suggested that Prevent offers a model that could be used to disrupt the early stages of grooming and exploitation. There was broad agreement that the wider ‘system’ needs better diversionary options for young people but those options have to compete with what gangs offer – cash, a sense of belonging and of course the threat of violence if the young people try to walk away. The issue of convincing a young person they can safely share intelligence without being able to explain how the support offer can beat the gang lifestyle and also keep them safe seems key to building a better response.

The final report from Crest into Looked After Children and County Lines is now out and available here https://www.crestadvisory.com/post/report-county-lines-and-looked-after-children. Crest are hoping to a begin a follow up project in the new year focussing on the victim – offender continuum in county lines. This is critical given the issues related to the correct use of s45 in identifying vulnerable young people and viewing those caught up in this as victims of exploitation as opposed to pure criminalisation being the right response. As one participant said on the night ‘we cannot arrest our way out of this problem’.