No. 28: County Lines

What is County Lines?

County Lines is the accepted name given to the method of supplying, distributing, and increasing drug use in rural counties. This is exploitation of children with devastating consequences for them and their families.

All agencies are aware the young are exploited by drug gangs from out of county

identify areas where drugs are already available,
identify areas to sell drugs and identify potential clients.
used to distribute drugs into these areas (they could be moving across county lines themselves to do this) and
carry money from the transactions or weapons needed by the main distributors for protection, threat or damage to people and property.

The main lines that are known to be targeting the South West are managed from Manchester, Greater Manchester, London and Liverpool.

Out of county gangs are likely to use coercion, intimidation, violence (including sexual violence), grooming and weapons to exploit children and vulnerable adults. This exploitation is one of the reasons for the increase in violence and knife crime amongst our young people.

As of October 2021 The County Lines Programme (Home Office Nov 2019):

closed more than 1,500 lines
made over 7,400 arrests
seized £4.3million in cash
safeguarded more than 4000 vulnerable people

This area of concern is often reliant on your professional curiosity and judgement and does not require you to have certainty of guilt or culpability to refer to the support network.

Local update:

drug gangs are present in towns, villages, rural areas and coastal areas in the South West, and drugs are being trafficked into Devon from across the country
drug gangs operating in Devon are increasingly seeking to exploit local children, young people and adults

Who are the victims of county lines, what to look out for?

Young people and children who have experienced previous childhood traumas such as ACEs may have an increased vulnerability to county lines exploitation.

However there is no set victim profile, they can be any gender, colour, background, social class, and age but there are some indicators that you may find useful:

they have friendships, relationships or association with controlling individuals or groups – look for patterns of non-attendance, listen to their peers about recreational activities, refusal or withdrawal from previous activities.
they become isolated from peers and social networks – you could use a genogram to show how their friendship groups have altered over time.
they have unexplained injuries, ill health, or suspicion of assault – sometimes those who are initially identified as victims become perpetrators.
there are changes in their emotional wellbeing – they may show signs of stress, inability to concentrate, quick to temper or tearful, withdrawn and depressed.
changes in behaviour or lifestyle – talking in an adult manner, disrespectful of authority (school staff and police etc), increase in money available to them (if dealing) or lack of financial resources (if using or in debt to the gangs), clothing may indicate a change in lifestyle or friendship group.
going missing or staying out late and presenting as if beyond parental control, parents being unsure where their young children are or who they are friends with or going further afield than previously.
someone else might share information with you that gives you cause for concern. This could come from a variety of sources – other parents, young people or agencies and should be recorded on the pupil chronology with the names of the third party withheld and placed in a separate report.
secretiveness, although this isn’t always the case, and some young people can be quite open about their associations and movement or they may tell you something which suggests they were involved in an exploitative situation e.g. party where drugs were being given
concerning use of the internet, social media or mobile phones, County Lines is controlled through the use of mobile phones and if you are concerned you should ensure that you consult with your school policy and if the phone is removed put in a safe area (fridge).
if a parent or young person tells you they have someone from another area staying with them for a couple of weeks and they don’t know their family, consider that this could be cuckooing

What can settings do?

Raise your concerns with your DSL/safeguarding team through your settings reporting procedures. Be professionally curious, is a young person seen as an aggressor in a situation also a potential victim? If appropriate share your concerns with parents.

Educate your pupils (age appropriate) around online and face to face grooming, child-on-child abuse, healthy lifestyles etc.

Consider contextual safeguarding audits and assessment (see useful resources link) and gather the views of your pupils.

If you see or hear of lots of visitors to a certain property or area or children are gathering in a certain area – this could be a location of concern.

If you become aware of a person of interest, a location of concern submit an information report to Devon and Cornwall Police through their secure Partner Agency Information Sharing Form (see useful contacts). You do not need to gain someone’s consent before submitting an information report. Doing so could compromise the police’s ability to act on this information. You can report information anonymously through Crime Stoppers by calling 0800 555 111.

Gang slang

Educate yourself with the current language used although this is not a definitive guide and be aware that it could change:

Younger – a juvenile dealer recruited to the gangs
Bando – a trap house (short for abandoned house)
Conch – out of town for cycle of 2/3 weeks where they will work 24hrs a day
Cuckoo – trap house which is not a pleasant environment for the dealers, particularly young children
Drawn Out – involved in gang culture or under pressure from street crime
Finesses/stained/sucked – when an individual has been robbed for his possessions e.g. drugs
Joey – a person employed by gang to sell drugs
Packaging containing the drugs is referred to as shots which are normally 0.1 grams
Going Country – base for the dealers
G Pack – contains 50 shots which will cost £1000
OJ/One Job – an individual who is proactive in drugs supply
Re Sup – person arrives at Cuckoo location to re supply county lines dealer
Twanged – to coerce someone into doing something or believing a story
Burner – mobile phone given to young people