Tag Archives: drugs

A long way from home: county lines, serious organised crime and exploitation in the UK

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Gangs and serious organised crime groups are increasingly targeting vulnerable people, including children and young people to become involved in drug trafficking and other kinds of illegal activities. Police and local authorities assisted by third sector and charity partners are trying to stem the flow of vulnerable people leaving towns and cities and travelling elsewhere in the UK as part of a wider network of organised crime and exploitation. The aim is to break the chain of supply which is seeing organised crime move away from our inner cities to rural and coastal communities across the UK. From London to Liverpool, Glasgow to Cardiff, county lines practices have been growing, and solutions to prevent vulnerable people being targeted are needed urgently across the whole of the UK.

A growing emergency across the UK

Figures have shown a significant rise in the number of drug-related deaths across communities in the UK, with a significant rise in deaths among young people and among those in rural communities. While drug problems are widely considered an urban, inner-city issue, increasingly communities in rural and coastal areas are struggling with drug-related crime and deaths as new markets and channels for moving drugs across the country are opened up by organised crime groups and gangs.

Research has shown that, unlike in previous decades, these are not just the result of social, ad hoc sharing and transporting of drugs, but strategic and coordinated networks designed specifically to open new markets for drugs beyond city centres and expose more communities to markets of illicit materials, including drugs. The National Crime Agency (NCA) reports that the main driver of this “county lines” practice is fundamentally the demand and supply of controlled substances within the UK and the opportunity of “new” drug markets to make significant amounts of money. Analysis from the NCA indicates that an individual line can make profits in excess of £80,000 per year and can make thousands of pounds of profit from one single trip.

An easy target

One of the defining features now recognised as a key part of county lines drug trafficking is the exploitation of vulnerable and socially excluded people.This offers a degree of safety for those at the top of the network who avoid getting their hands dirty by delegating work to those further down the chain. Vulnerable groups, such as the homeless, care leavers or young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, are identified by county lines groups both as a target market for the drugs trade and for “recruitment”, involving them in the storage, transportation or selling of drugs in these new sites. This means that, on the whole, these groups are being disproportionately impacted. Many often don’t see themselves as victims or realise they have been groomed to get involved in criminality. Commentators and practitioners have stressed that an urgent and powerful response to safeguard these groups is needed.

A 2017 report from the Children’s Commissioner estimates there are at least 46,000 children in England who are involved in gang activity. It is estimated that around 4,000 teenagers in London alone are being exploited through child criminal exploitation or ‘county lines’. In March 2018, the Children’s Society published the second edition of Criminal exploitation and County Lines: A toolkit for working with children and young people. It summarised the risks to children and young people who become involved in county lines as including:

  • physical injuries: risk of serious violence and death
  • emotional and psychological trauma
  • sexual violence: sexual assault, rape, indecent images being taken and shared as part of initiation/revenge/punishment, internally inserting drugs
  • debt bondage – young people and families being ‘in debt’ to the exploiters; which is used to control the young person
  • neglect and basic needs not being met
  • living in unclean, dangerous and/or unhygienic environments
  • tiredness and sleep deprivation: the child is expected to carry out criminal activities over long periods and through the night
  • poor attendance and/or attainment at school/college/university

These challenges are also faced by other groups of vulnerable adults who are targeted in the same way. But while vulnerable children are subject to a compulsory referral process in relation to suspected exploitation, adults must consent to being referred, which research has suggested may be impacting the reported numbers of victims. This in turn indicates that the true number of vulnerable adults being exploited may be significantly higher.

Tackling county lines by working together

Partnership working between services which come into contact both with the county lines gangs and with the vulnerable people they exploit has been shown to be critical to facilitating an effective response and halting the spread and further development of county lines networks. However, it has also been highlighted that traditional approaches and mechanisms used to identify and safeguard vulnerable groups, particularly children, are no longer sufficient in the context of county lines child criminal exploitation (CCE), and that new guidance is needed to support practitioners in this field.

In September 2018 the National County Lines Coordination Centre was launched to crack down on drug gangs. The multi-agency team of experts from the National Crime Agency (NCA), police officers and regional organised crime units are working together, along with other partners in local areas, to build a national picture of the complexity and scale of the threat.

At a local level, pilot projects in several London boroughs, including Hackney, Islington and Lambeth and in other trial areas outside of London, such as Kent and Merseyside, have taken place. Evidence has shown that frontline services across the board play a key role in helping to identify and support those people at risk of exploitation from county lines gangs – not just police and prison service staff – but healthcare workers, social workers, teachers and youth work professionals from the public and third sectors. Working together as multi-agency partnerships, while challenging, results in the best outcomes and opportunities for intervention and support for children and vulnerable people who are at risk. It is essential that staff receive a high standard of training and that they themselves are given the time and resources needed to try and forge effective partnerships which in turn will help to identify and intervene with those at risk of gang exploitation more effectively and at an earlier stage.

Partnerships which include opportunities for staff training and guidance from third sector specialists like St Giles Trust and Safer London make use of the significant knowledge and experience held within the third sector and help local authorities to apply these to their own statutory responses. They also encourage the sharing of effective practice and knowledge on tackling exploitation across the whole of the UK, which is helping to create a more effective and joined-up approach to tackling child exploitation and the links to county lines practices. Maintaining this sharing of knowledge and skills across different sectors and professions will continue to be vital in helping to develop practice and responses that can react more effectively to exploitation in the future.

Providing a safe place and a route forward for victims of county lines exploitation

In a county lines context, better safeguarding and early intervention practices with vulnerable people serves a dual purpose: preventing the person involved being exploited and engaging in criminal activity; and disrupting the county lines operation, and subsequently the flow of illicit materials into our communities. The networks are, by their own design, elusive and hard to trace. Those involved are threatened and often trapped in roles within the network which they would otherwise be unable to escape on their own. Providing a safe space for these exploited people is an important first step in the process of tackling county lines and organised criminal networks.

Local authorities are working closely with partners to try and provide this support at a local and very personal level while trying to fit into the wider strategic process of the national response to county lines. These national and local responses are both vital in tackling county lines and the exploitation that comes with it.

TKE members can access more resources on County Lines via our website. If you are not a member, but would like more information on subscribing to TKE to gain access to more resources on a range of economic and social policy areas, get in touch with us to find out more.

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How Finland put housing first

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Earlier this year, official figures showed that rough sleeping in England had risen for the sixth successive year.

The data showed that 4,134 people slept on the street in 2016, an increase of 16% on the previous year’s figure of 3,569, and more than double the 2010 figure. Many of those enduring long-term homelessness have complex and multiple needs related to mental health or addiction. While this is a growing problem in the UK, housing exclusion is by no means confined to these shores. As we reported in April, there is growing evidence of an alarming increase in homelessness across Europe.

But one European country is bucking this trend. Since 2008, the Finnish government has been working with housing agencies to reduce long term homelessness and improve prevention services. The adopted approach, called ‘Housing First’, has had a big impact, achieving a 35% fall in long term homelessness over seven years. Finland is now the only country in the European Union where homelessness continues to fall.

Housing First: what it means

Housing First is not a uniquely Finnish approach to tackling homelessness, nor is it a new idea. The practice began in Los Angeles in the 1980s. It’s based on the principle that housing is a basic human right, and turns on its head the notion that vulnerable people are only ‘housing ready’ once they have begun to engage with support services.

As the name suggests, Housing First means providing vulnerable people with permanent, affordable housing, and then offering specialised support to ensure that they don’t return to sleeping on the streets. However, acceptance of that support is not a condition for access to housing. The approach has been adopted in various American cities, as well as parts of Australia, Canada, France and Japan. But it’s in Finland that Housing First has achieved some of its most impressive results.

Housing First: how it works

One of the key players in Finland’s Housing First strategy is the Y-Foundation, an association of local authorities, church, construction, trade union and health organisations that has been supporting homeless people for more than thirty years. Starting in 2008, the foundation converted homeless shelters in Finland’s biggest cities into rental housing. At the same time, the government set targets for local authorities to build new flats in mixed housing developments. The programme is backed by money from government grants and the proceeds from Finland’s not-for-profit gambling monopoly.

Housing First: why it works

The cost estimate for Finland’s Housing First programme is €78 million. But Juha Kaakinen, chief executive of the Y-Foundation, has no doubts about its value for money. In an interview with Inside Housing, he explained:

“It’s not only good social policy; it has a big safety and security angle, as the more homeless people there are on the streets, the more unsafe the city is. And there’s an economic argument, too: taking care of these people is a good investment.”

He estimates that taking each homeless person off the streets saves social, health and emergency services around €15,000 a year.

Housing First in the UK

Homelessness charities in Britain have been taking great interest in the success of Housing First in Finland.

“It’s a stunning result,” Matt Downie, director of policy and external affairs at Crisis, told Inside Housing.  “They used to have a bigger homelessness problem than we have.” But he was less sure whether the programme could be replicated here. “We’ve got a system that is the exact opposite of Housing First. In Finland they made a strategic choice; that allowed them to change everything.”

Even so, Housing First is already gaining ground around the UK:

Scotland
A pilot project in Glasgow by Turning Point Scotland was the first Housing First project to be implemented in the UK. Between 2011 and 2013, the project provided mainstream social housing and 24/7 floating support to 22 individuals who were homeless, aged 18 or over, and involved in substance misuse. An evaluation of the project by Heriot Watt University found that none of the tenants were evicted from their flat and the majority of participants retained their tenancies.

Wales
The Welsh Government has announced that it is considering moves towards a Housing First policy. The communities and children secretary for Wales told the Welsh Assembly in April 2017 that he would be reviewing homelessness prevention in Wales, and is exploring Housing First initiatives.

Northern Ireland
Working with the Depaul youth homelessness charity, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive funded a Housing First pilot scheme in Belfast. An evaluation of the 18-month programme reported a number of positive results, including a high rate of tenancy retention, improvements in participants’ self-care, confidence and living skills, and reductions in their dependence on drugs and alcohol. A further Housing First programme has since been established in Derry.

England
In 2015, the University of York published findings from a study of nine Housing First services in England. The authors reported high levels of success in reducing long-term and repeated homelessness, with 74% of service users successfully housed for one year or more. There were also significant improvements in the physical and mental health of Housing First tenants and high levels of satisfaction. The Centre for Social Justice has called on the UK government to set up a £110m national Housing First programme, arguing that the investment would save money and lives.

Final thoughts

There is no quick fix to the problem of homelessness, but Finland has shown that adopting new ways of thinking about the problem can virtually eradicate rough sleeping. As Juha Kaakinen observes:

“Housing First means ending homelessness instead of managing it.”

Further reading on homelessness:

The death of nightclubs?

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by Stacey Dingwall

Last month, Islington Council confirmed that one of London’s biggest clubs, fabric, would not be reopening. The nightclub’s licence had been suspended following two-drug related deaths at the venue. Over 150,000 people, including the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (whose Greater London Authority has no power to intervene in licensing decisions) have since signed a change.org petition demanding the club be allowed to reopen. Ironically, Khan has recently announced that he will be appointing a ‘Night Czar’ for the city. This new figure will be responsible for developing London’s night time economy, which is currently worth £41 billion and supports more than 1.25m jobs. The recent launch of the night tube is also intended to grow the city’s night time economy.

The night time economy

We’ve previously looked at the importance of the night time economy to the UK’s economic growth. A 2015 report from the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) placed the economic value of UK’s night time economy at £66 billion, employing 1.3 million people and representing 6% of the country’s GDP.

The Arches in Glasgow closed in similar circumstances to fabric last year. These clubs are just two of many that have closed their doors in the last decade. Between 2005 and 2015, the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR) estimate that the number of clubs in the UK fell from 3,144 to 1,733. The body believes that if this trend continues, the country will be left worse off “culturally, socially and economically”. Others have also highlighted the potential impact on youth employment, which is already a significant problem for the UK.

Who or what is to blame?

Some within the industry have pointed to the introduction of the smoking ban, longer pub opening hours and the recession as potential explanations for a decrease in the popularity of nightclubs. Others have placed the blame on planning policy and a “hostile” licensing climate. This is particularly evident in London, where widespread property development is prioritised in order to create the affordable housing the city so desperately needs.

There are also those that criticise the police’s “heavy handed” attitude towards drugs, and a stereotyping of clubs and those that frequent them. Police Scotland have come under particular criticism for the way in which they engaged with the Arches when it was still open. According to Dr Jack McPhee, a drugs and alcohol policy expert at the University of the West of Scotland, since the amalgamation of Scottish police forces, “…the recovery of controlled drugs and successful prosecutions became performance indicators in Scotland. So that in itself began to dictate police activity”. Scotland’s prosecution rate for drugs related offences is almost twice that of the other UK nations.

Comparisons with the rest of Europe

In comparison, drugs policy on the continent tend to focus more on harm reduction. In the Netherlands, for example, clubs use the Drug Information and Monitoring System (DIMS), which allows users to test the safety of their drugs. Rather than focusing on criminalisation, systems like these focus on public health, recognising that people will continue to take drugs regardless of how many venues the police close down. Indeed, some have voiced their concern that a continuation of current UK policy will only increase their use in the dangerous, underground market, whereas moving towards proper regulation could save lives.

A brighter future?

Despite this, the recently appointed director of government and public affairs at industry body UK Music, Tom Kiehl, believes that the night time industry has a “bright future” under the new government. Recent comments from Sadiq Khan in particular have given Kiehl confidence that planning and licensing restrictions may be lifted in order to support the growth of the night time economy. In addition, a successful club based drug testing system is currently being tested on a small scale in the UK, which may see a shift in current law enforcement attitudes depending on the results.

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