In this Safeguarding Podcast with Dr Grace Robinson we discuss the language, business and impact of County Lines. What are “clean skins” and “gift girls”? Have COVID lockdowns stopped County Lines operating? Are children extorted into working them or is it a career choice? What can we learn from the Prohibition Era, and 10 recommendations for combatting County Lines.
Welcome to another edition of the SafeToNet Foundation’s safeguarding podcast with Neil Fairbrother, exploring the law, culture and technology of safeguarding children online.
Neil Fairbrother
Pandemic lockdowns have changed our shopping habits. Home delivery of grocery shopping has grown 132% and the delivery of takeaway food has increased by 80%. County Lines are a drug delivery service that has many parallels with regular shopping, but which adversely impacts children’s lives. To guide this through this aspect of crime and her latest research findings, I’m joined by Dr. Grace Robinson, who is Executive Director of Black Box Consultancy and Research. Welcome to the podcast, Grace.
Dr. Grace Robinson
Thank you, Neil, it’s a pleasure to be here today. Thank you.
Neil Fairbrother
Grace, can you give us a brief resume please, so that our audience from around the world has an appreciation of your background and experience?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah, of course I can. I’m a research fellow at the University of Nottingham. I am based in the Rights lab and I’m currently doing research into the impacts of COVID-19 on child criminal exploitation and County Lines. I completed my PhD at the backend of 2019. This was based in Merseyside and was really looking at childhood exploitation, gangs and County Lines. Ss well as working at the University of Nottingham, I also have my own business specializing in expert witness testimony and educational workshops and training around County Lines and criminal exploitation.
Neil Fairbrother
And that’s the Black Box Consulting business?
Dr. Grace Robinson
It is, yes.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Well, just before we get into your research on the impact of COVID-19 on County Lines, perhaps we could define some terms because there are some quite unusual ones. First of all, County Lines itself, what do we mean by County Lines? What are they?
Dr. Grace Robinson
County Lines is essentially the migration of drugs and children from one area to another, for the purposes of selling those drugs in that area, basically maximizing profits, reducing the risk of detection from law enforcement, perhaps in more smaller areas and rural areas where there isn’t as many police. And also where there aren’t as many drug dealers and where the job market isn’t as strong.
And as I said before, this is a practice that’s been happening for decades. You know, drugs have been moved across the country for years and years and years. The reason why it’s become such a hot topic is because of the exploitation of children and the exploitation of younger children. So more 12 year-olds becoming involved, more vulnerability, more violence and more harms to communities basically.
Neil Fairbrother
And I believe children even younger than 12 have been involved?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the youngest that I came across in my PhD research was seven. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was lower than that. That’s also officially the youngest that I’ve heard of.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. What’s is “Cuckooing”?
Dr. Grace Robinson
It’s taking over somebody’s property. It’s usually a vulnerable adult that tends to be a drug user. So somebody who is addicted to crack cocaine or heroin, and the premises is basically taken over for the purposes of using that property or premises as a base to supply drugs from. So what happens is typically the way in which people are cuckooed is there’ll be offered some crack cocaine or heroin. Drug dealers will come into the property. They will then invite other runners, drug dealers and offenders basically, move into the property and then start supplying from that address. And it’s very, very difficult once those individuals manage to get into the property, to then remove them. Because Cuckooing on its own, isn’t an offense, but it’s what happens in that property, is an offense. And, you know, the people that are cuckooed are very, very vulnerable, often disenfranchised, marginalized, haven’t got access to support networks, like many people have.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. What is strapping or being on tick?
Dr. Grace Robinson
On tick is essentially a “buy now, pay later” scheme. So the most common example that I could give you would be a young person is trying to purchase some cannabis from a drug dealer, the drug dealer will say, don’t worry about it, you can you can pay me next week.
Neil Fairbrother
It’s a form of credit?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah. Essentially. And then what happens is the debt builds up daily and the young person then is in a position where they can’t pay off that debt. So they have to start working for that drug dealer to pay off that debt. Strapping is the same as being on tick. Essentially. It’s just another word for it.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Thank you. Now we think we all know what a gang is, but is there an agreed definition of gang?
Dr. Grace Robinson
No, there’s not. It’s a really contentious one. And I could probably sit here all day and talk to you about what a gang is. We have Home Office definitions that are very vague. We have academic definitions. I have tried to stay away from using the term gang since my PhD, since my Masters. I don’t think it’s helpful to use the term gang, it’s very stigmatizing. There’s so many different definitions that you can just get lost in that debate. So I try and move away from gang and I’ll just use network, prime network, or group basically.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. What is a “clean skin”?
Dr. Grace Robinson
A clean skin is somebody who hasn’t got a criminal record. So somebody who is less likely to come into contact with the authorities, somebody who is therefore more able to stay under the radar. So for example, children who have never been in trouble with the police, they would be classed as clean skin.
We’ve also seen recently that there is exploitation or ID fraud of people online. So basically, they will be offered a certain amount of money for providing their driver’s license for example. The reason being so the organized crime groups can then take out credit loans, finance agreements, hire cars in that person’s name. If that person has got a clean driving license then, they’re technically termed as a clean skin as well. So it’s just somebody who goes more under the radar.
Neil Fairbrother
And I believe that these people with a clean skin, or a clean skin, if that’s the right terminology, will sell their social media profile?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Not exactly sell their social media profile. Adverts are uploaded to social media, advertising anything from between £500 and £5,000 and they will say, you know, we’ll give you this much if you’ve got clean driving license if you can provide your details. Then their details will then be used and taken, and it’s basically just ID fraud so that the group can then take out finance agreements and get cars that are passed around the network and all the things that facilitate in organized crime.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Now there’s quite a dreadful term used which is “gift girls”. What a gift girl?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Gift girls are girls that are passed around an organized crime group or a drug supply network. When a young person, or when a drug dealer has basically sold drugs or done something worthy of reward, so basically proven that they are competent and then the girl will then be passed around the group as a gift or as a reward. And she will essentially conduct sexual favours on these males.
Neil Fairbrother
So child sexual abuse?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yes.
Neil Fairbrother
And the final term that’s worth noting is three initials, YOT. What is YOT?
Dr. Grace Robinson
That stands for Youth Offending Team. So when a young person has been through the court system, they will then go to what’s called a Youth Offending Team and that Youth Offending Yeam, the youth workers within that will create a contract with that young person to identify how they can repair the harm and identify what needs to take place to handle that offender behaviour, to address it basically.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Thank you for that. So now we’ve got an idea of some of the terms used, just to look a little bit more about how County Lines work. The UK’s NCA, the National Crime Agency, says that “…the association of multiple mobile phone numbers to a County Line allows access to the line by multiple offenders and provides resilience in the event of disruption or removal of an individual mobile phone number”. In other words, if one actor gets busted by the police, or arrested by the police, the line itself is pretty resilient and will carry on functioning. Is that what you found?
Dr. Grace Robinson
That’s right,yes. So basically, there will be, I think the National Crime Agency says there was something like 2,000 County Lines numbers and 1,000 branded numbers. So for example, if I can use a case from my research, that will be a County Line, for example, called the Max Line. Now they will send out adverts to their customers and will sign it off with Max. Now those customers then know that the drugs that they are getting off from this certain drug supply network, and they can sort of rely on the purity, or they know who they’re getting it from, and they know what they can expect.
Now, like you said, these lines are very resilient. The numbers will often change, but the line itself will stay the same. So if the police then arrest somebody and take the mobile phone, the phone number is obviously gone. They will then get a new phone number. They will distribute that phone number again to the customers and say, this is the Max Line we’re back up and running.
Neil Fairbrother
So these County Lines have got their own branding, which is really quite astonishing. Now I understand that a line can be fully restored within hours, I think in one example I read or heard about in another podcast, within three hours. So what was Operation Venetic? What was that all about? And what impact did that have?
Dr. Grace Robinson
My understanding about Operation Venetic, it’s the UKs arm to the EncroChat bust. So EncroChat was a service that was provided to anybody really, but the main customers tended to be organized criminals. So it was basically a service where they could subscribe to a mobile phone. They could send texts or images. They couldn’t ring people. It was supposed to be really safe from cyberattacks or hacks. So basically encrypted. A lot of these organized crime groups invested in them, used them, got very, very complacent in what they would say over them. You know, some of them just speaking in pure English, no slang, no code words. The drugs, it was very explicit. So the National Crime Agency, together with Europol I think and other the international police forces have managed to tap into those phones and get the data and use them as evidence.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. I think just as an indication of scale the EncroChat online service, the encrypted chat service, had around 60,000 subscribers at the time of its closure, and 10,000 of those were in the UK and 1,400 were based in or around London. Also the NCA says that County Lines offenders use mass marketing techniques to advertise the supply and availability of drugs offenders offer promotions that we’re all familiar with, in fact BOGOF, buy one get one free, as well as free samples in exchange for contact details of potential customers. Is that also correlated with your research?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yes, absolutely. They’re run like legitimate businesses. They’re very entrepreneurial. So as you say they will send out bulk text messages to hundreds and hundreds of drug users. They will offer things like 3 for 20. So if I can just tell you that, for example, one 0.1 gram of crack cocaine, or one 0.1 gram of heroin, which is the deal size that drug uses tends to have, that would be £10 each. So that would be £20, but obviously they will say 3 for 20, it’s fine. They’ll have offers like that. They will give out samples. What they tend to do is the purity will be very, very high originally. They will get drug users into relying on them, and then the purity will become lower over time.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Now we can’t talk about online harms without referencing at least briefly the Online Safety Bill, or at least the draft version of it that was recently published. Now it doesn’t mention County Lines specifically, but it does mention CSEA particularly. It also has a dictionary definition of harm, which is “…something having a significant adverse physical or psychological impact on a child of ordinary sensibilities”. Is that a particularly helpful piece of legislation do you think, for County Lines?
Dr. Grace Robinson
I mean, it’s addressing the correct terminology, isn’t it? How that plays out in reality, I’m not sure. And you know, that Bill, the legislation, says what it says. We still have so many children that have been groomed online, sexually exploited young girls and boys. So it’s just really how that play has plays out in reality. And we need much more accountability at the minute.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Now let’s look at how COVID has disrupted or otherwise County Lines. You mentioned in the definition that it requires the movement of people, particularly young people, on public transport to traffic drugs from one location to another and of course the COVID lockdown has reduced the ability of everyone to travel. So presumably this is bad news for County Lines operators. Has there been a decrease in County Lines drug running?
Dr. Grace Robinson
I think it made it a little bit more difficult for them, but it didn’t take them very long to overcome those barriers really. By around June or July of 2020 County Lines had returned to pretty much business as usual. At the very start, there was an expectation that the price might increase, the supply might be but, the drugs being what they are, heroin and crack cocaine, very, very addictive and very you know, dependent. Drug users were still accessing those drugs so there was no real impact on supply.
We heard in some areas of the country that the price did increase. Now, we think that was mainly at wholesale level. And again, that might have been due to the EncroChat bust because, you know, drug supply networks were becoming a little bit apprehensive about what would happen, but that didn’t really trickle down to street level supply, to county lines, but what did happen is security and some areas decreased.
And we also heard reports that in some areas there was an introduction of new adulterants. For example, cat litter was used as an adulterant for heroin. As you mentioned, transport was a little bit more difficult. County Lines networks have relied upon the rail network previously and obviously because there was a reduced foot traffic, there was hardly any passengers going through those train stations. Any young person that did, it was very, very obvious and stuck out like a sore thumb to British Transport Police.
So British Transport Police when we spoke to them, reported a lot of success in being able to identify that behavior, that suspicious that sensei and speak to young people, you know, because we weren’t supposed to be out. And some of the excuses that young people used were, you know, going to funerals of relatives who had died from COVID-19, attending food banks, they also sometimes had disguises on.
So for example someone passed through with builders outfits on, only they’ve come back about six hours later, immaculately dressed, with not a bit of dirt or dust on them. And obviously that stuck out to British Transport Police.
With that success, there was a movement then towards use of the roads. So, again, an increase in the exploitation of people for their driving licenses. An increase in young people being exploited into car theft so that these cars can be passed around the network and can changed because policing tactics are very, very good when you’re on the roads. We’ve got ANPR [Automatic Number Plate Recognition], you’ve got cameras, they’ve got all the methods that they can use to identify activity passing through the roads.
Neil Fairbrother
Presumably masks were quite useful with this illicit trade as they are the perfect and legal method to avoid face recognition technologies?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Absolutely. Yes. Masks are excellent for criminals who want to keep the face hidden.
Neil Fairbrother
In your February 2021 paper, you said that by July 2020, police had documented inconspicuous methods of transporting drugs, which included both 18th century technologies and 21st century technologies, that used to say canals and drones. How do these methods work, particularly drones where usage is regulated based on size and weight of the drone?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah. So I’m not too sure in how that would work with the drones. It was only reported at one area as well as the use of canal barges. But if I’ll say anything, is that these organized crime networks are ingenious in the methods that they will use, and if it’s an option, they will use it. And if they can find somebody to coerce to become involved, to exploit, they will. So, you know, it’s all about staying under the radar and staying on step ahead of the police.
Neil Fairbrother
Yes. I don’t want to give anyone any ideas, but presumably in the same way that driving licenses can be extorted, so can drone licenses?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah, absolutely.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Now we defined Cuckooing earlier, what has been the impact of COVID on Cuckooing?
Dr. Grace Robinson
So, because it was obviously a lot more risky for drug networks to be on the roads or on the train networks, we had reports that these Cuckooed properties were firstly being Cuckooed a lot more. So it was a lot more common. And secondly, that children were being exploited or forced into stay in these properties for a lot longer as well.
So they might’ve been given a greater quantity of drugs to remain in that property, to reduce the amount of drops that these networks were having to do. But again, policing tactics, because there was the closure of the nighttime economy, police had a lot more reallocation of resources, essentially so they could put more effort into these high-risk communities. They were more visible on the streets. They were speaking to community members more, and the intelligence was a lot stronger than it had been previously.
And because people were working from home, they were able to see suspicious activity of people that may be passing through houses a lot more often, or pushbikes outside houses, or cars, or groups of young people. So whilst it did increase, there was also increased policing tactics to identify that activity.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. And in your February paper again, you say that “…social media platforms are increasingly being referenced as being important in the early stages of grooming”. Does this follow the same pattern as grooming for CSE and radicalisation?
Dr. Grace Robinson
So, my research and this research project has been all around County Lines exploitation, so I’m not best placed to comment on sexual exploitation. I have my own views, and I think that they would be the exact same, you know. Grooming, we’ve had reports that for example, a young female’s Instagram account was being targeted by another female who was commenting on her makeup page or her makeup posts, really just befriending, building up that trust, then going through her follower list and trying to identify other young people that they could gain access to. So, you know, with all exploitation it’s coercive, it’s deceptive, it’s hidden. This grooming, befriending, trust, I think that’s the same, but this research really just addresses County Lines exploitation.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Now you said that “…peer recruitment remains important in the referrals of other young people to perpetrators”. Now peer group mapping is a key feature of Contextual Safeguarding. Could this help in this context do you think?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Absolutely. Yes. I think if I can just go to the peer recruitment, firstly, we’ve had reports that children’s Snapchat groups have been infiltrated by these organized crime groups. And once we found one young person in the area that they would want to go and set up as a drug supply market, they find that young person and they start speaking to them and then it’s very attractive to them for their friends to become involved. Or it’s very easy to then refer their friends and say, oh, you know, I know that she’ll do it and he’ll do it as well. And then they map their journey to that area, through that young person and through that Snapchat contact.
Contextual Safeguarding absolutely is fantastic and one of the great things about trying to address County Lines at the minute, it’s not just looking at within the home because the exploitation is happening outside of the home and within parks and in every sort of public space that children and young people are and with their friends, you know, we need to be mapping where they gather and who they’re with and who they’re speaking to.
Neil Fairbrother
Refer a friend is a common business tactic where the referrer, the person doing the referring, gets some kind of reward, a discount on a product or some such. Is a similar thing happening here?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Not that we found, not that we found. I mean, yeah, absolutely, I think concerns of the drug using population, if you can find the drug users or the customers for us, then we will give you some free heroin or crack cocaine. I think in the context of children and young people, they would probably be more likely to refer somebody that they know possibly to reduce their own or minimize their own exploitation, if that makes sense.
Neil Fairbrother
Well, there’s your reward, right?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Absolutely.
Neil Fairbrother
Are young people, by the way, involved in county lines coerced into them, or do some of them think it’s almost a career move?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah. You’ll get some young people that will engage in drug supply willingly. You will get some people here will then enjoy working County Lines, who will enjoy the respecs and the status and the money that they get from it and will thrive in that environment. You will get some young people who will engage in County Lines willingly without really knowing the true consequences and then once it gets a little bit coercive, violent, intimidating, that’s when they want to remove themselves out of the situation.
You know, like I’ve said, County Lines is very, very deceptive. I’ve spoken to children who have said that they were willing to get involved in selling cannabis and then have been given class A’s such as heroin. So while they may consent to one element of it, they’re not consenting to the other. So there are a whole host of different children who get involved for different reasons and who have different outcomes.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Now vulnerable children and looked after children seem to be especially susceptible to being recruited into County Lines. Have you noticed any change in the way that local authorities are providing safeguarding for these young people that are in their care?
Dr. Grace Robinson
There’s a lot more emphasis on the multi-agency approach, on communication, on education. It’s sort of outside the research, I think. We’ve not really had great reports on that, but it’s really that multi-agency approach, more communication and making sure that the right people are sitting at the table at those safeguarding conferences.
Neil Fairbrother
Are County Lines the 21st century equivalent of bootlegging from the prohibition era? And if so, what lessons can we learn from prohibition, if any?
Dr. Grace Robinson
I’ve never thought about that before, no one’s ever put that to me before. Well, I guess, yeah, absolutely. It’s the same methodology, isn’t it? This violence and exploitation and yeah, absolutely. You could say that.
I think if we can learn any lessons from it, it’s that prohibition doesn’t work and I’m real advocate for decriminalization. I think if we want to tackle County Lines, we need to really provide support networks for the customers, for the drug uses. Because we focus so much on tackling supply, I mean, why not tackle demand? If there’s no demand, there’s hardly any supply right? And there are so many other countries who are doing amazing things, decriminalizing drugs, having safe spaces for drug users to take the drugs that they need still, less stigmatization and, you know, really supporting people instead of alienating them and disenfranchising them.
Neil Fairbrother
Yeah. And with modern app-based technologies, presumably it would be easy or easier to track people who purchased these drugs, the users, for their health and safety?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah, of course. They are so many ways that we can use technology to our advantage in that way. One of the things that the police saw, there was an operation taking place or has taken place in Merseyside, for example, where once they take down a County Line, or they’ve got the mobile phone of that drug network, they will then send blanket text messages to the contacts in that phone offering support, basically saying that, you know, we know you’re a drug user, we know you might be in a situation, we’re offering help and here’s the number if you want to get help. So there are fantastic things that are happening in police policies. It just needs to be rolled out much more. We need to really address the policies and the laws that are in place that are allowing this to happen.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Now you do make some recommendations in these papers, in fact five recommendations in each paper. We’ve got 10 minutes left, so two minutes per recommendation [maths was never my strong point! Neil] . The first one is “…police forces should maintain a neighborhood policing approach in high-risk communities, especially in light of increased cuckooing. What do you mean by that?
Dr. Grace Robinson
We know with the police that we spoke to, they were really positive about the impact that they’ve been able to have from reallocation the resources into these high-risk communities, from building relationships with community members, from speaking with children on the streets, to having that presence. And it was really going back to old school policing measures, you know, being visible, seeing people, speaking to people, increased intelligence from that and they’ve had a lot of success from it.
I’ve just told you about the Cuckooing. Members of the community will call the police and tell them that they are seeing suspicious activity. And you know, because of that, they’re able to identify these locations and close them down and safeguard the children that they find. Also, you know, increased education through social media. They put out adverts on Twitter, put out adverts on Facebook. We’ve worked with local charities and organizations to raise awareness and it’s working.
Neil Fairbrother
The second recommendation is that “…all police forces should ensure that accurate data is provided to regional level county lines analysts”. Is that not happening? Is that not the default anyway?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah, I think the kind National County Lines Coordination Centre asks for data from these units. I think it’s quarterly. From speaking with some of the people that work in those organizations, I think they weren’t getting data from every single police force, which was making it quite difficult to provide a real picture basically if the context of what was happening. So some forces were really forthcoming with data and some weren’t, I think that was the main issue. And obviously without knowing the full extent of things, you don’t know where to put those resources.
Neil Fairbrother
You say that “…where possible, police should continue to develop strong relationships with partners to enhance intelligence gathering and share good practice”. What do you mean by partners?
Dr. Grace Robinson
So you can send in teams, local councils, authorities, charities, for example, youth workers, you know, anybody within this environment, social care, hospitals. A&E wards for example, get so much intelligence, they are the first people who see these young people. You know, it’s really not just on the police to address County Lines. It’s on everybody working within this area and beyond that as well. So it’s just about a joined up approach and speaking to people and sharing the intelligence in the best way that they can to safeguard the children.
Neil Fairbrother
Yes. Talking about A&E, I understand the nature of the kind of injuries that people are presenting with in relation to County Lines has changed.
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yes. So much more severe. The average number of stab wounds has risen from two to three to about five to six. I will just say that these are A&E wards in London and Birmingham, so I can’t generalize that to the rest of the country. But yeah, more severe, more violence, increase in stab wounds, fingernails pulled off, hair pulled out, you know, really, really, really sad, really sad. It makes for shocking reading really.
Neil Fairbrother
More intelligence should be collected on the middle tier actors involved in County Lines. Interesting you should say middle tier. Why not the top tier?
Dr. Grace Robinson
I think they have a good understanding of who’s involved in the top tier and they are obviously picking up a lot of the children on the streets who are in the lowest year. It was really that middleman, essentially. So for example, if we’re importing into the country cocaine, who was involved in turning that cocaine to crack cocaine, to reversing in that process, and it was really just, there’s a huge intelligence gap on who these people are on the demographic, on where they remain, on what they do. So yeah, that’s why that the emphasis was on that recommendation.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. The fifth recommendation from your February paper is “…paying close attention to platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram with increased analysis of social media activity which is requires to identify new grooming patterns used by perpetrators”. Now, this is obviously in the sphere of the Online Safety Bill, although of course, as we said, it doesn’t mention County Lines particularly. But these platforms are increasingly using end-to-end encryption. So how can this be done?
Dr. Grace Robinson
I’m not the best place for that. I’m not that techie, if I’m honest. It’s not just the police, it’s the people working with young people, so if a youth worker is sat next to a young person and seeing a Snapchat message, or seeing an Instagram message, it’s really about building the picture of, you know, how is that contact being made, what imagery is being used to lure in and entice children and young people, and how exactly are these perpetrators accessing these young people?
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. So, I mean, presumably they might be able to look out for the kind of language used, the slang used by people involved in County Lines?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, all code words, nicknames, it would sound like the speaking a different language sometimes just from the codes that they use. But also, you know, there are profiles on Instagram, for example, that just supply drugs, they have thousands and thousands of followers and they don’t really follow anybody themselves. And then through that follower list, they can just send private messages advertising these drugs. So it’s just about following and trying to build intelligence basically to identify who is the line holder and the ringleader of that.
Neil Fairbrother
From your June paper, you say that “…face-to-face meetings with young people should resume as soon as possible.” And I think this is in relation to youth workers and the like, what’s the issue here?
Dr. Grace Robinson
It is, yes, obviously with Covid, lock down restrictions, everything apart from high-risk children and young people, so those deemed really, really high-risk, everything else may have to online instruction or over the phone. Now, some young people responded really well to that. Some young people prefer that method of contact. But a lot of children and young people, they didn’t feel safe to make disclosures over the phone.
Practitioners who rely upon non-verbal cues, who rely upon being able to see that young person, to see what they wearing, to see whether they might smell of cannabis and see if they’ve got new trainers, for example, those methods of identification are now not there. So as things begin to open up again quite slowly, we need to move back to face-to-face, because you can have children that are still engaging the court order or with their youth practitioner, they’re still engaged in the picking up the phone, they’re telling them that they’re fine, but really they could be still sitting in cuckooed properties. They could be in dangerous situations. They could be out of the area when, if it was face-to-face, that that practitioner knows that that young person has sat in front of them.
Neil Fairbrother
And “…independent return home interviews should be completed in person within 48 hours”. Why within 48 hours?
Dr. Grace Robinson
Really to get the best information, you know. Memory isn’t that great sometimes. If we can speak to these children and young people as soon as they’ve come home, then the chances are that account that they provide is more accurate. As well as that, if you give young people lengthy periods of time before contact with a member of authority, then there was a chance that that perpetrator could be sitting with them, telling them what to say, coaching them on the story that they should be giving rather than the honest accounts.
And again, it’s a lot more difficult to build a relationship with the child over the phone, to build that rapport, to build that trust. And if you’re a vulnerable child, if you already have a barrier in place with authority, when somebody rings you up and asks you when you’ve been, and you don’t know them, and you don’t trust them, chances are you’re not really going to open up and be honest. So that’s why we have an emphasis on trying to get those return home interviews where a child’s being missing, straight away and in person.
Neil Fairbrother
“Statutory services should incorporate diversionary schemes to reduce court backlogs and to keep young people out of the criminal justice system”. What do you mean by diversionary schemes?
Dr. Grace Robinson
I mean, even prior to COVID 19, our criminal justice system was really suffering. We’ve had long delays of trials going to court and victims being given justice and perpetrators being given justice as well. That suddenly got worse because the courts have been closed.
What some areas of the country are doing now is if a young person has been involved in a really low-level offense, say for example, possession of cannabis, instead of sending them to court and giving them a criminal record, and then send them into the Youth Offending Team for addressing that behaviour, if it is low level, they will then basically offer that young person support around drugs and harm around the law, anything that they might need support with.
That young person has to then agree in a contract on their safety basically, and how they are going to stop the offending behaviour. Now, if they then do offend, or they don’t agree to some of that contract, or don’t conform to it, then they will go to court and then they might have a criminal record. But it’s really giving them that chance to address the offending behaviour, to have help with drug connections, maybe dependencies, before it gets too late. So it’s really to address that backlog and keep young people out of the criminal justice system.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. The fourth recommendation in your June report we’ve somewhat touched on, which is that “…all A&E departments in the UK should have youth workers in place to offer support to children and young people attending hospital with violence related injuries”. And I believe at least one of your interviewees in this research referred to hospitals as being a “safe Haven”.
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah, absolutely. So when children are admitted to A&E they all very, very vulnerable in their life at that moment in time, physically and emotionally. They may not have any support network in place and then it’s just kind of this youth worker that’s there, that’s sitting with them, that will even hold their hand if that’s what they want and need at that time, just to make sure that they know that they’re there.
And they are really reachable moments for youth practitioners to try and build a picture of what’s happened, of what they’re going through, of how they can be released safely and also, you know, work with partners like the police to build that intelligence picture, to help and safeguard that child. So the really reachable moments and youth practitioners that are working at A&E have reported having some really good information or relationships with those children because of that.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. And your fifth and final recommendation from your June paper is that “…criminal exploitation and the county lines training should be made a national requirement for those working with children, young people and vulnerable adults”.
Dr. Grace Robinson
Absolutely. You know, yeah. County Lines is evolving all the time. So is criminal exploitation. And we have a lot of ideas about what we think and who we think might get involved in this and be a victim, but actually absolutely anybody can be a victim. And if you were working with children or vulnerable adults, you need to be aware of what to look for in all of this, to be able to safeguard and help other young people and vulnerable adults as well. It’s so important that we educate everybody, particularly those working with children and young people, and also educate children so that they know what to look for because once they are involved, it’s so difficult to get them the help that they need.
Neil Fairbrother
Yeah. Poverty is one driver, but it’s not the only driver, for this. It’s not unusual for middle-class white children to be involved in this.
Dr. Grace Robinson
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if I can just go back to the clean skin phenomena, and the fact that these drug networks just try and stay under the radar and stay one step ahead. So if they can find a child that matches the demographic of the area that they are working in, then the chances of them coming into contact with the police is a lot lower. And again, middle-class children, you know, they could want for nothing financially, but it might be that identity, it might be that respect that they get, or it might be that camaraderie, you know, that sense of belonging, it’s a real driver for these children and young people to feel like they fit in and have an identity.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Now we are out of time, unfortunately, but where can people find your research, Grace?
Dr. Grace Robinson
So it’s accessible on the University of Nottingham website if they head to the Rights Lab. You can also find obviously the University of Nottingham on twitter, or you can find me on twitter @DrGraceRobinson.
Neil Fairbrother
Fantastic. What’s next for you, Grace? What are you doing for the rest of the year?
Dr. Grace Robinson
So this project is still ongoing. I think we are in the initial stages of compiling the sources, final reports. I think we’re hoping to speak to a few practitioners that we’ve already spoken to see some of the long-term impacts of COVID and what they are witnessing at the minute. As well as that, I’m also involved in a research project, exploring the intersection between mental health issues, learning disabilities, and exploitation in Nottingham, and that’s really having a look and exploring Cuckooing and debt bondage, financial exploitation and sexual exploitation as well.
Neil Fairbrother
Okay. Well, good luck with all of that, Grace. That’s been an absolutely fascinating insight into the world of County Lines and drug dealing, which is taking place probably in a town near you right now. Thank you very much, Grace.
Dr. Grace Robinson
Thanks, Neil, thank you very much.