New report on youth exploitation shows the states failure to protect young people from gang violence
For many years, social activists and grassroots community workers have been trying to raise awareness about the experiences of young people being groomed in cities across the UK. The problem was historically associated with young black boys, and the rise in knife offences and associated drug dealing was largely linked to young black boys from disadvantaged backgrounds. Young black children have been going missing for weeks at a time, often found in ‘trap houses’ being exploited by older drug dealers.
But until now, there was no report on how vulnerable they are, or any focus on their mental health, their vulnerability, or their social and economic circumstances. Instead, they have always been criminalised, regardless of age and vulnerability. These topics were among the issues covered in my book ‘Black British Problems’ Un-layering the issues behind knife crime, youth violence and black boys, which was published in 2019.
Anne Longfield CBE, Chair of the Commission on Young Lives, has published her year-long Commission's final report, 'Hidden in Plain Sight: A national plan of action to support vulnerable teenagers to succeed and to protect them from adversity, exploitation and harm'.
The Commission's report proposes a new 'Sure Start Plus for Teenagers' network of intervention and support as the centrepiece of a wide range of recommendations to government, the police, schools, and others to tackle the deep-rooted problems in the children's social care, education, family support, children's mental health, and criminal justice systems.
The Commission warns that the failure of these systems to protect some of the most vulnerable children is allowing criminals and abusers to groom thousands of young people in England into county lines, gangs, and criminal activity.
The so-called gang leaders have craftily changed their business model and found a new vehicle for their dirty work – the young middle class child from a sub urban neighbourhood, who is not on the radar of the police or services. The drug gangs are aware that young black boys have a double threat, they are 9 times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police, whereas the young white teenager is not going to be stopped and searched several times per week, resulting in the safe and uninterrupted trafficking of drugs. In short, institutional racism has assisted the business model of the drug dealer.
It is easy to brush this off with the ‘why make it about race’ question. My answer is simple, I didn’t make it about race, the Lammy report in 2017 showed there is a race issue, the recent overhaul of the Met’s Gang Matrix, shows there is a race issue and the fact that a holistic public health approach is now recommended when the issue effects vulnerable children from middle class, sub urban areas, shows there is a race issue. Thankfully the report finally acknowledges the disproportional effect that gang culture has on ethnic minority communities.
The disturbing truth is that, even when dealing with the exploitation of children and vulnerable young people, the powers that be, have, in the past, taken a different approach to tackling the issues in different communities.
The report says there are already huge stresses on over-stretched services and the public purse due to a lack of early intervention, and that a combination of Covid, a cost-of-living crisis, and any return to austerity would be a gift to those who exploit children. Over the last year, the Commission has heard from multiple professionals working with vulnerable children that many of these problems have become more extreme since the pandemic, including the ages of those running gangs becoming even younger. It has also heard countless examples of children from suburban, middle-class England being groomed by criminals who have spotted a vulnerability and moved in with clinical ruthlessness.
The violent exploitation of young black boys has for years, resulted in so many horrific headlines, from countless fatal stabbings to fatal arson attacks, yet there was no national focus on the underlying issues and traumas faced by young people and their families. Young children have been groomed and suffered violent, and sometimes sexual abuse in so called ‘county lines’ exploitation, yet time and again, we see these young boys removed from the ‘trap houses, being arrested and entering the criminal justice system, with no care or regard for their mental health and the trauma they have experienced.
Anne Longfield CBE, Chair of the Commission on Young Lives, said:
"There are parts of our country where the state is completely failing in its duty to protect vulnerable children from the ongoing epidemic of county lines, criminal exploitation, and serious violence. This is a problem hidden in plain sight, rocket-boosted by Covid, which is disproportionately affecting teenagers in deprived and minority ethnic communities and also some families living in leafy suburbs.
"It is a national threat to our country's prosperity and security, a threat which is ruining lives and scarring communities, and which is costing the NHS, schools, the police and criminal justice system, and the children's social care system billions of pounds every year.”
The Commission on Young Lives website states that: Government statistics published last week reveal that in 2021/22 there were over 16,000 instances in England where child sexual exploitation was identified by local authorities as a factor at the end of an assessment by social workers. There were 11,600 instances where gangs were a factor and 10,140 instances where Child Criminal Exploitation was a factor. These numbers are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg. Those involved in gang activity and criminal exploitation are disproportionately young, vulnerable, and unknown to services. It has been estimated that there could be as many as 200,000 children in England aged 11 to 17 who are vulnerable to serious violence.
Rev. Steve Chalke, founder of Oasis, which hosts the Commission on Young Lives, said:
"'Hidden in Plain Sight' is a shocking report which shines a light on the gaps in an array of the vital systems - social care, education, family support, mental health - whose job it is to protect every young life. It exposes the cracks. They are not joined up, they have become overly top down, they are underfunded and overstretched. It uncovers just how hard it is to recognise, let alone respond in a transformational way, to the cries of the most vulnerable children, young people and parents, who most need their support.
"I am not at all surprised by the findings of the Commission's report. My day-by-day work in local communities - some of them amongst the most socio-economically deprived in the country - means that its pages simply echo the lived reality of many of the children that I am all too familiar with”.
Anyone who is aware of the horrors of gang culture and its effect on young people, will welcome the report. If the recommendations are followed by the police and authorities, ALL vulnerable young people will be treated as victims rather than criminals and given opportunities to rebuild their lives through education and mental health support.