Preventing criminal exploitation: evidence summary

Introduction

Criminal exploitation involves the exploitation of an individual to engage in criminal activity for the benefit of the exploiter. The Scottish Government defines criminal exploitation in the following way:

Criminal exploitation of children (under 18 years) or vulnerable adults (18 years and over) is when an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, control, manipulate or deceive the child or vulnerable adult into criminal activity, for the financial or other advantage of the exploiter. Criminal exploitation of non-vulnerable adults (18 years and over) is similar, but there may not be any significant power imbalance. It involves an individual or group subjecting the adult to force, threats or deception to induce them to become involved in criminal activity, for the financial or other advantage of the exploiter. A victim may have been criminally exploited, even if the criminal activity they engage in appears consensual.

(Scottish Government, 2023a)

Criminal exploitation can take a variety of forms. It can include trafficking, “cuckooing” (taking over the homes of vulnerable adults to use as a base for criminal activity); moving and storing drugs, money and weapons; theft; pickpocketing; fraud; and cannabis cultivation (Scottish Government, 2023b). Victims of criminal exploitation may experience other overlapping forms of exploitation, such as labour or sexual exploitation (Dixon, 2023). The Home Office classifies the following as the main forms of criminal exploitation: forced gang related criminality, forced labour in illegal activities, forced acquisitive crime, forced begging, trafficking for forced sham marriage and financial fraud (Cooper et al., 2017).

Child criminal exploitation can be described as “an overarching term that is often used to include children involved in ‘county lines’ exploitation and those who are victims of child trafficking. It may also include forced begging, stealing and cannabis cultivation” (Rigby et al., 2020, pg. 7). A power imbalance between the victim and the exploiter(s) is the key distinguishing factor for child criminal exploitation. This can be related to age, gender, cognitive ability, physical strength, status and economic resources (Dixon, 2023).

In recent years, child criminal exploitation has increasingly become associated with the term ‘county lines’ (Holligan et al., 2020; Robinson et al., 2019). The UK Government defines county lines as “gangs and organised criminal networks involved in exporting illegal drugs into one or more importing areas (within the UK), using dedicated mobile phone lines or other forms of ‘deal line’. They are likely to exploit children and vulnerable adults to move and store the drugs and money, and they will often use coercion, intimidation, violence (including sexual violence) and weapons” (Home Office, 2023, pg. 3).