I’m Trying to Save My Family: Parent Experiences of Child Criminal Exploitation
| Published date | 01 August 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14732254221122559 |
| Author | Nina Maxwell |
| Date | 01 August 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14732254221122559
Youth Justice
2023, Vol. 23(2) 243 –258
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/14732254221122559
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I’m Trying to Save My Family:
Parent Experiences of Child
Criminal Exploitation
Nina Maxwell
Abstract
Despite growing awareness of child criminal exploitation, there is a dearth of evidence relating to parent
views and experiences. This article presents interview findings from parents with lived experience of
parenting a criminally exploited child. Early warning signs, such as behaviour changes, disengagement from
school and child disappearances, were often rationalised in response to family circumstances or normal
teenage development. Not knowing the child’s whereabouts, increased missing episodes and disengagement
from the family prompted parents to seek help. Findings highlighted the need for parent involvement in the
development of suitable responses at the individual, local and national levels.
Keywords
child criminal exploitation, county lines, multiagency, parents, social work
Introduction
Despite growing awareness of child criminal exploitation, there is a dearth of evidence
relating to parent views and experiences. Child criminal exploitation refers to children
and young people who are manipulated or coerced into criminal activity for the personal
gain of an individual, group or organised criminal gang (Home Office, 2018). Consideration
of parent perspectives is important, given that family factors are widely accepted as influ-
encing a child’s susceptibility to exploitation. In terms of increased vulnerability, factors
include neglect, abuse, poor parental supervision, domestic abuse, parental mental ill
health, parent substance misuse or parent involvement in criminal activity (Children’s
Commissioner for England, 2019; Spencer et al., 2019; Turner et al., 2019; Violence and
Vulnerability Unit, 2018). Conversely, presence of a stable family structure and infre-
quent parent-child conflict are widely accepted as reducing a child’s susceptibility to
exploitation (Cordis Bright, 2015; McDaniel, 2012; Turner et al., 2019). What is lacking
in the current literature is examination of parent experiences of caring for a child who is
being criminally exploited. This article addresses this research gap.
Corresponding author:
Nina Maxwell, CASCADE: Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff
University, SPARK, Cardiff University Social Science Park, Maindy Road Cardiff CF24 4HQ, UK.
Email: MaxwellN2@Cardiff.ac.uk
1122559YJJ0010.1177/14732254221122559Youth JusticeMaxwell
research-article2022
Original Article
244 Youth Justice 23(2)
Background
There has been growing concern about child criminal exploitation in the United Kingdom
since the 2010s. While the National Crime Agency first reported a threat assessment for
child criminal exploitation in relation to county lines in 2015, shortly before this, Andell
and Pitts (2017: 12–13) highlighted its association with a ‘perfect storm’ of factors. This
included the loss of employment opportunities for young people, reductions in staff and
resources for youth services and the scarcity of appropriate accommodation which led to
the co-location of care leavers with children leaving custody (Andell and Pitts, 2017).
This coincided with the saturation of the drugs market in urban areas and increasing levels
of competition which gave rise to the emergence of ‘county lines’, where class A drugs
were distributed from urban areas into rural, border and coastal towns (Windle and Briggs,
2015). Such mobilisation has been underpinned by the exploitation of children who are
controlled by ‘senior controllers’ and used to conduct drug dealing activities (Hales and
Hobbs, 2010: 29). Hence, child criminal exploitation can be regarded as a ‘wicked prob-
lem’ as it has emerged as a symptom of other social and cultural problems; it consists of
multiple independent actors, has no definitive formulation and has endless possible solu-
tions (Rittel and Webber, 1973).
Drawing upon complexity theory, child criminal exploitation will vary according to the
behaviours of actors within the network, especially as the network self-organises in order
to adapt, evolve and survive (Pycroft and Bartollas, 2014). Rather than a uniform transi-
tion from traditional models of drug supply to county lines, Harding (2020) proposed an
evolutionary typology based on findings form a study of the transition of a London-based
urban street group to the Home Counties. This study revealed transition away from the
traditional drug dealing model, characterised by ‘local drugs for local people’ (Harding,
2020: 40) and run by local crime families, to more dynamic models dependent upon local
factors. The first new model, ‘commuting’ (Coomber and Moyle, 2018; Hales and Hobbs,
2010) is perhaps the most well known, with urban-based groups moving into new markets
by using children from cities to transport drugs to rural areas. The ethnicity of these chil-
dren reflected the ethnicity of the urban-based group, with black children from London-
based groups, Asian children from Birmingham-based groups and white children from
Liverpool or Manchester-based groups (National Crime Agency, 2017). However, once
established in these areas, urban-based groups created a local base often taking over or
‘cuckooing’ the home of a vulnerable drug user and concomitantly grooming and using
local children who mirrored the ethnicity of the local population (Harding, 2020). Such
evolution was dependent upon local push and pull factors, such as road and rail networks
as well as the level of resistance from both the local crime families and the police. For
example, under the ‘blurred lines’ model (Cullen et al., 2020), local families retained con-
trol over the area by imitating the strategies used by urban-based groups, such as exploita-
tion and violence. It follows that child criminal exploitation manifests differently in
different areas (Maxwell and Wallace, 2021) and the development of possible solutions
will be dependent upon how the problem is defined by the actor (Pycroft and Bartollas,
2014). With no statutory definition, child criminal exploitation is perceived according to
the perspective of the particular actor or agency, whether it is professionals such as
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