Beating County Lines (And Other Things to do Before Lunch) / Criminal Exploitation of Children (ePub)

County Lines is the business model being operated by organised criminal gangs throughout the UK in order to supply controlled drugs through the exploitation of children. It is a growing phenomenon and the UK authorities are not winning the battle against it.

This is a problem at the forefront of safeguarding responsibilities for schools, local authorities, the police, the National Probation Service, health and social services. More than anything it is a threat to families and every parent needs to know about it.

This book is for every service leader and for every parent seeking to protect children and young communities - or simply their own families. County Lines is not just a threat to a 'feral underclass' - it is a phenomenon that has resulted in serious harm and death to children from a wide variety of backgrounds and from all walks of life.

In writing this book I have drawn on my first hand knowledge of the mechanisms of County Lines and Child Criminal Exploitation. I will reference the insight that I have been given - both as a former police officer, as an investigator of crime, as a prevention and problem solving specialist, and now in my role working in schools with some of the most vulnerable children in society.

My specialist knowledge and experience, combined with the engagement that I have had with so many affected children and families, puts me in a rare position to add to the knowledge that we hold collectively. Sadly, most research in this area starts with the declaration that 'not enough is known about this phenomenon'. More needs to be published and recorded, and without doubt, more needs to be documented in the public domain about the hidden victims of child exploitation.

This book is corroborated by academic sources and contemporary media accounts.

Written in plain language - and never taking for granted the knowledge or expertise of the reader - this book will take anyone from a position of not knowing anything about this subject to a place where they are beyond the levels of knowledge that many professionals are currently operating with. This book outstrips the levels of training and insight offered to many professionals who are given only cursory awareness of this threat in the course of covering a wide number of child protection issues, limited by a very finite amount of training time.

This account contains compelling and very honest insights into the challenges that the UK is facing today when it looks at why County Lines is so successful. This book pulls no punches on the decisions that have been made which have undermined child protection and created a market for illegal drugs made available through the exploitation of children. I will give very candid and real examples of the children and young people I have worked with - the successes and the tragic failures that we have had collectively when dealing with criminal exploitation. I do not believe that there is a book openly available that will get you closer to the truth about this subject. My aim is to present this in such a way that it creates a very necessary conversation and paves the way for a significant variety of people to take the much needed meaningful action that is needed at this critical time.

Foreword provided by Chris Tooley, Principal of The Netherhall School and Oakes Sixth Form College, Cambridge.