Six county lines trends
Claire Walford
Our new National Projects Assistant, Maria, has specialist knowledge in county lines. We asked her to share six observations about county lines in the UK in 2025:
- Schools have a really important role to play
This can be both positive and negative. A troubled child will get a detention for playing up in class. They will then meet other children in the detention room who introduce them to county lines. A small amount of trouble in school can lead into a whole world of crime outside of school. Similarly, once children are expelled or being educated in a different set up such as a Pupil Referral Unit, they are often vulnerable to being targeted or groomed. Schools are on the frontline when it comes to picking up signs or indicators that a child is being drawn into county lines.
What can I do? Do you know anyone who works in education? Who could you forward our Schools Resource to?
- Gangs are offering belonging
There are so many gangs across UK cities, particularly in deprived areas where support is limited. For young people, this lack of opportunity and guidance can create a sense of inevitability about the path their lives will take. We need to ask ourselves and our communities: how can a young person in danger of being drawn into gang life find an alternative path? Where can they turn for help? Crucially, we must normalise the idea that reaching out for support is a sign of strength, not weakness. Young people should feel able to access youth services, mentoring, and safe spaces without shame, places that offer the belonging, guidance, and hope that gangs often appear to provide.
What can I do? Does your community have safe spaces for young people? How could you support local youthwork initiatives in your community?
- Psychological, not physical chains
We often see a person in chains to depict human trafficking. In reality, in the UK, control is usually maintained through psychological and emotional means, threats of violence, debt bondage, manipulation, deception, or by exploiting someone’s vulnerabilities. A trafficker doesn’t need to lock someone in a room to stop them from leaving, often, the fear of harm to themselves or their loved ones is enough to ensure compliance. This is why it’s so important that our understanding of human trafficking is shaped by the real indicators of control and exploitation, rather than by film portrayals such as Taken or other sensationalised depictions.
What can I do? Do you need to adjust your perception of modern slavery and human trafficking? Why not look again at the signs to look out for?
- Domestic violence, coercion and modern slavery
There is a lot of similarity between domestic violence and modern slavery. For example, we understand that a victim of domestic violence might not feel able to leave their situation. They may feel trapped, coerced, manipulated, threatened, fearful for their life or their family’s life and without options. In the same way, there can be many reasons why a victim of human trafficking cannot escape. Just because someone doesn’t run away when given the chance, doesn’t mean they are not a victim. There are so many complexities surrounding coercive control, emotional manipulation and threats.
What can I do? Spend some time familiarising yourself with local organisations and services so that you can signpost support if someone is looking for debt services, women’s groups, rape crisis support or other frontline services.
- Targeting those who struggle
Many of the county lines victims I have worked with have experienced multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences. These can include growing up with an absent parent, living with addiction in the family or struggling with their own substance use, experiencing sexual abuse, coping with bereavement, facing mental health difficulties, or searching for a father figure and a sense of belonging. Young people carrying these vulnerabilities are at heightened risk of being groomed and unknowingly recruited into county lines exploitation.
What can I do: could you ask your local youth group whether they are aware of County Lines and have considered it in their safeguarding? Would they be interested in running an awareness course for young people who might be at risk?
- Control through debt
Debt bondage is a common tactic used to recruit and control young people in county lines exploitation. Gangs may deliberately ‘stage’ a robbery so that a young person loses the drugs they were carrying, the gang then insists they must repay the debt by running drugs for the gang, leaving them feeling trapped and without a choice. In other cases, gangs target people with addictions, supplying drugs for free until the debt builds up to an unmanageable level. Repayments can only be made through working for the gang, but the figure is often fabricated and interest is added, creating a never-ending cycle of exploitation.
What can I do? Take a moment to pray for victims of county lines – pray that people in their lives would see what is going on and help them escape the criminal gangs.
