What is child criminal exploitation (CCE) and county lines?
Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) is when a child or young person is groomed and forced into criminal activity. Like sexual abuse, a child can not consent to their own exploitation.
Children who are criminally exploited are often treated as offenders, not victims. But they are victims of abuse.
What is county lines?
County lines is a term used when gangs and organised crime groups use children to move drugs and money between areas. This often involves travel across counties, but it can also happen locally.
Other forms of criminal exploitation
CCE is not just about county lines. It can also include:
- being forced to work in cannabis farms
- being made to carry or hide drugs (sometimes inside their body – known as ‘plugging’)
- being forced to commit fraud
- being made to shoplift or pickpocket
- being forced to break into homes or steal car keys
Why are children targeted?
Offenders use children because they are:
- easier to control
- less likely to be stopped by police
- cheaper to exploit
Children may be groomed with gifts, money or promises of protection, love or belonging. Exploiters often use emotional manipulation, threats or violence to keep control.
They may also take advantage of issues like bullying, low self-esteem and feeling unsafe in their local area.
Grooming and coercion
Gangs and exploiters often use threats, coercion and violence to control children. Victims are punished for things like losing drugs or money, whether through arrest or theft by others. These punishments can be:
- physical - including stabbings or acid attacks
- financial - where children are forced to repay large sums, often with added interest. This is known as debt bondage.
Sometimes, exploiters trick children into debt. For example, they may give a child a phone or drugs, then later demand payment. This traps the child in a cycle of exploitation.
Peer grooming and social media
Grooming can also happen through peers at school, in the community or online. Social media is used in multiple ways:
- to glamorise/normalise drug selling/gang involvement and criminality
- to sell and advertise the drugs
In Hartlepool we are seeing daily the use of social media sites to sell drugs and vapes.
Victims, not criminals
There is still a lack of awareness about child criminal exploitation (CCE). Victims are often wrongly seen as having chosen to commit crimes.
Because of grooming, many children do not realise they are being exploited. Children who are trafficked or exploited into crime must be safeguarded, not criminalised.
This is in UK law, under The Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, which states that victims should not be punished for crimes they were forced to commit.
Signs of criminal exploitation
Look out for these signs that a child or young person may be a victim of criminal exploitation:
- frequently going missing and being found in unfamiliar areas
- found carrying large quntities of drugs or weapons
- hiding drugs inside their body
- unexplained money, phones, clothes, jewellery, new haircuts or gifts
- being arrested in another area, especially for drug offences
- repeated incidents in the same location
- returning from missing episodes with injuries or looking unkempt
- changes in behaviour - becoming secretive, withdrawn or isolated
- skipping school, college or work
- becoming hostile or physically aggressive or using language linked to drugs or violence
- saying they don’t care what happens to them - showing signs of invincibility
- showing a strong interest in making money
- being taken to parties, hotels, homes or unknown areas by adults
- increased use of drugs or alcohol
- fear of gangs or violence
- having multiple phones or SIM cards
- possessing hotel key cards or keys to unknown places
- disclosing abuse, then withdrawing the allegation
- being abducted, or forced imprisonment
- getting into cars with unknown adults
- self-harming or showing emotional distress
- refusing to engage with support services
- forming new peer groups or relationships
- being in relationships with older or controlling individuals
- signs of neglect