County lines drug trafficking

Public ad campaign about county lines trafficking

In the United Kingdom, the county lines drug supply model is the practice of trafficking drugs into rural areas and smaller towns, away from major cities.[1][2] Criminal gangs recruit and exploit vulnerable children, sometimes including children in pupil referral units and those who have been excluded from school, and exploit them to deal drugs.[3] Some young people are recruited via debt bondage, whereby they enter county lines to pay off drug debts.[4][5][6] Many of these activities are forms of modern slavery.[7]

The term "county lines" is used where illegal drugs are transported from one area to another, often across police and local authority boundaries.[8] Lines refers to the phone numbers, or deal lines, dedicated to this activity.[9] The practice is also known by those involved as "going country" ("cunch") or "going OT" ("outta town").[10][11]

  1. ^ McGoogan, Cara (1 October 2018). "Airbnb and Uber urged to act on teenage drug mules". the Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  2. ^ "County Lines - National Crime Agency". www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  3. ^ Rawlinson, Kevin (28 September 2018). "'County lines' drug gangs recruit excluded schoolchildren – report". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  4. ^ Robinson, Grace; McLean, Robert; Densley, James (19 October 2018). "Working County Lines: Child Criminal Exploitation and Illicit Drug Dealing in Glasgow and Merseyside" (PDF). International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. 63 (5): 694–711. doi:10.1177/0306624x18806742. ISSN 0306-624X. PMID 30338710. S2CID 53015950.
  5. ^ Robinson, Grace; Densley, James; McLean, Robert (2018). "County lines: the dark realities of life for teenage drug runners". The Conversation. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
  6. ^ Ireland, Carol A; Lewis, Michael; Lopez, Anthony C; Ireland, Jane L, eds. (2020). The Handbook of Collective Violence (PDF). doi:10.4324/9780429197420. ISBN 9780429197420.
  7. ^ "Criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults: county lines (accessible version)". GOV.UK. Retrieved 28 April 2024.
  8. ^ "County Lines". www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk. National Crime Agency. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
  9. ^ Otte, Jedidajah (18 October 2019). "Police arrest more than 700 in UK-wide county lines drug crackdown". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
  10. ^ Storrod, Michelle L.; Densley, James A. (28 November 2016). "'Going viral' and 'Going country': the expressive and instrumental activities of street gangs on social media". Journal of Youth Studies. 20 (6): 677–696. doi:10.1080/13676261.2016.1260694. ISSN 1367-6261. S2CID 151516320.
  11. ^ "What It's Really Like 'Going Country'". Vice. 28 November 2017. Retrieved 1 October 2018.