According to the Children’s Society, children as young as seven have been recruited by the county lines gangs to move drugs across the country.
The report finds that 14-17 year olds are the most likely to be exploited by the criminal gangs and organised crime groups but children still in primary schools are being targeted more often. In one case a 8-year-old was suspected to have been groomed to carry drugs and one 7-year-old was receiving support after getting in the gang.
Police have previously found children as young as 10 were linked to 2,000 drug-dealing county lines gangs in the UK. However, the new report shows there was more than this as some children were overlooked after being below the age of criminal responsibility.
The gangs are taking advantage of younger children but both boys and girls are at risk no matter how old they are. The number of 10 – 17 year olds arrested for intent to supply drugs has risen by 49% especially outside of London; the number rising from 338 in 2015/16 to 505 in 2017/18. These children are in dangerous and traumatic situations which can take them hundreds of miles away from their homes.
Nick Roseveare, chief executive at The Children’s Society, said: “This shocking report reveals how cowardly criminals are stooping to new lows in grooming young people to do their dirty work and in casting their net wider to reel in younger children.
“Yet the response from statutory agencies is too often haphazard and comes too late and a national strategy is needed to help improve responses to child criminal exploitation.
“This should mean better early help for children and training for professionals, access to an advocate to ensure all children are supported as victims, and a greater focus on disrupting and bringing to justice the perpetrators who are exploiting them.”
The children are being forced to move drugs across the country, work in cannabis factories, shoplift or pickpocket. The children are been promised money if they agree to work with the gang. “They are then controlled using threats, violence and sexual abuse, leaving them traumatised and living in fear.”
Children who are affected emotional by family breakdowns, living in poverty and being excluded from schools are most likely to be targeted by gangs.
Responding to The Children’s Society report Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said: “Councils’ youth offending teams have an exceptional record of reducing youth crime and making a real difference to young people’s lives, but they are under huge pressure after seeing their government funding halved over the last decade.
“Children’s services are now starting more than 500 child protection investigations every day, but face a £3.1bn funding gap by 2025. This is forcing councils to divert funding away from preventative services such as youth work into services to protect children who are at immediate risk of harm.
“To help stop young people being criminally exploited and drawn into serious crime, it is vital that government reverses years of funding cuts to local youth services, youth offending teams and councils’ public health budgets, which need to be addressed in the Spending Review.”
