Policing County Lines

Responses To Evolving Provincial Drug Markets

Jack Spicer

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030541927
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030541934
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

The County Lines phenomenon has become one of the most significant drug market developments in the UK over recent years. This book analyses how it is being responded to by the police in affected provincial areas. Drawing on unique ethnographic fieldwork, it takes readers into police stations and out onto the streets with officers, providing timely insight into the policing of this high profile and challenging drug market context. The book considers the use of new police tactics that have been proposed and familiar methods that officers regularly embarked on. Through a sophisticated theoretical framework it argues that the policing of County Lines can often be considered 'symbolic', with concerns regularly placed on sending out strong messages that appear superficial when closely examined. Alongside this, however, there appears to be a progressive shift towards a more pragmatic drugs policing approach that embraces harm reduction principles.This cutting-edge research speaks to academics in Criminology and Policing, and to practitioners and policy makers.

© The Author(s) 2021

J. SpicerPolicing County LinesPalgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Societyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54193-4_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Jack Spicer¹

(1)

Frenchay Campus, 3D014, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

Jack Spicer

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

The Realities of Drug Markets

The hidden world of illicit drug markets, including how they change over time and the role of the police in responding to them, has been a principal concern of criminologists for decades. Across time and place, the buying and selling of illicit substances, the social terrain these exchanges are situated within and the relationship between those transgressing and enforcing drug laws have regularly been the focus of inquiry. Part of the reason for the popularity of these criminological endeavours is how they often allow for scrutiny into state responses to social problems and marginalised groups. Half a century ago, for example, Jock Young (1971) told a theoretically sophisticated ethnographic story of how cannabis users living in the Notting Hill area of London carved out a subcultural existence just below the surface of mainstream society. By studying their dynamic relationship with the police, wider society and the resulting forces of ‘fantasy’ and ‘deviancy amplification’, he classically outlined the types of social interactions and processes that can spiral out of the application of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. More recently, Travis Linnemann (2016) has interrogated the so-called meth epidemic in parts of rural America, critically examining the cultural roles of various criminal justice and societal institutions in constructing the ‘meth imaginary’ that mediates how the problem is commonly perceived to exist.

Many other fascinating studies have been undertaken in-between, and many more will be pursued in the future. The so-called drug war and those on both sides of the legal fence in this long-running saga therefore continue to be the subject of scrutiny, controversy and debate (Gossop 2016; Inciardi 2008). Imbued with mythology, moralising and misunderstanding, drug markets are social arenas that occupy a distinct cultural and political space, where often firm, but upon closer inspection, occasionally slightly blurred lines are drawn regarding what is considered right and wrong (Coomber 2006; Reinarman and Levine 1989). One rarely needs to look much further than the stereotypes, dramatisations and narratives that regularly underscore how the subject is covered in the news media for this to be put on full show (Alexandrescu 2018; Ayres and Jewkes 2012; Coomber et al. 2000). The many fictional representations of drug markets and the ‘cops and crooks’ involved with them also demonstrate the moral ambiguity and general ‘grey areas’ (Jacques 2019) that abound in this clandestine world (Linnemann 2016; Wakeman 2014).

Yet, while not overlooking the significance of the cultural meanings subscribed to them, the pleasure that the drugs sold within them can bring or how they represent very different things to very different people, it is important to recognise that drug markets are frequently the sites of very real and often very significant harms (Coomber 2015; Hall et al. 2008; Kleiman 2005; May and Hough 2004). Their human costs can be considerable. Individuals can be exposed to the types of harsh experiences rarely experienced anywhere other than at ‘virtually anarchic’ illegal market places (Jacques and Allen 2015). Those living and working in wider communities affected by drug markets can also be consumed with undesirable or sometimes exceedingly deleterious impacts associated with their presence. While often clandestine, the harms of this subterranean world can be numerous, substantial and cumulative. As those working in the realist tradition have stressed, to downplay, obscure or, at worse, ignore these harms risks criminology failing to address adequately some of the true actualities of crime, the attempts to control it and those whose lives are often most affected (e.g. Matthews 2014). While not dismissing the continued value and importance of the rich tapestry of theoretical lenses that have been trained on this area, for an academic discipline with crime as its central focus or ‘meeting point’, this risks criminologists overlooking an important part of their brief. How they may be culturally represented and socially constructed is undoubtedly regularly distorted or exaggerated. But drug markets can very often be a significant problem. For better or for worse, plenty of professional’s lives are also spent trying to solve them. These fears, harms and subsequent responses are currently playing out every day on the streets, behind closed doors and in police stations up and down the UK.

Paul Andell (2019) has recently argued, via the adoption of a critical realist framework, that thinking about and taking drug markets ‘seriously’ is of central importance. As has been observed by others, however, it is often difficult to separate drug markets and their machinations from the attempts at enforcing relevant laws against them by agents of formal social control (e.g. Ellis et al. 2002; Hall and Antonopoulos 2017; Matrix Knowledge Group 2007). Paying close and critical attention to the realities of how drug markets are responded to by the police and thinking about this ‘seriously’ can therefore be considered a complementary criminological endeavour of corresponding worth. Other researchers who have trodden similar paths to the empirical data reported in this book have argued much the same (Bacon 2016; Collison 1995). While remaining attentive to the importance and the inescapable influence of the social constructions and cultural meanings that swirl around and become difficult to reconcile from drug markets, it is amid the backdrop of attempting to document some of the realities of how particular local drug markets are policed that this book situates itself. As it attempts to detail ethnographically, these realities can be complex, exciting, frustrating and mundane. Sometimes they can be all of these things in the space of just a few hours. But they should be considered important. Ultimately, reporting and critically analysing such details on the policing of drug markets opens a window, albeit partially, into what is ‘actually going on’ in this fundamental component of the criminological world (Fielding 2006).

Policing County Lines

More specifically, this book is concerned with detailing the local policing responses to a particular, and arguably particularly significant, contemporary drug market development. Across the UK, an apparent drug market ‘evolution’ has occurred over recent years involving the outreach practices of drug-dealing networks from major supply hubs to provincial satellite areas (Coomber and Moyle 2018). Widely referred to as the phenomenon of ‘County Lines’, urban groups involved in the supply of crack cocaine and heroin have been reported to be increasingly expanding their illicit operations from their native major urban conurbations and ‘setting up shop’ in more provincial areas including rural, coastal and market towns (NCA 2016; Robinson et al. 2019; Whittaker et al. 2020). To successfully achieve this, dedicated phone numbers are used by these supply networks to connect the various parties involved and facilitate drug supply. Rather than sourcing heroin and crack through local contacts, it appears that, over recent years, those living in provincial areas across the UK are finding that the dealers they are purchasing from are increasingly from elsewhere.

The emergence, increasing recognition and apparent burgeoning of this outreach supply practice has generated significant attention and concern. Corresponding with the difficulties of separating illicit markets and the attempts at enforcing laws against them, it has often been difficult to divorce this high-profile drug market development from the various high-profile responses to it. This attention has been particularly intense among the police and other law enforcement agencies, with senior criminal justice officials and social control agencies with national influence being the original key drivers of the issue. In particular, as discussed in further detail later on in this book, the relatively new institution of the National Crime Agency has been particularly influential in bringing the issue to the fore and setting the general surrounding agenda (see NCA 2015). Correspondingly, it has also been highly influential in subsequently dictating the terms on which the issue has been discussed and, to a certain extent, how it is now commonly understood (see NCA 2016, 2017).

In an iterative process, this intense law enforcement agenda on County Lines has permeated out and become absorbed into wider political and policy spheres. In the formulation of their influential ‘drug-scare’ concept, Reinarman and Levine (1989) noted that during times of intensified attention on specific drug-related ‘problems’, various professional interest groups often fight for authority on speaking about the topic. A more general competition for ownership regularly also ensues. This appears to resonate closely with how the phenomenon of County Lines has played out over the past few years. Various politicians at various times have been outspoken on the topic, perhaps recognising the political currency available for doing so. It has also received significant attention from various political groups such as the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Runaway and Missing Children and Adults (see APPG 2017). Likewise, those that seek to straddle the divide between policy and practice have been consistently outspoken and sought to position themselves as prominent commentators on the topic. Organisations such as The St Giles Trust and The Children’s Society continue to regularly promote their work in the area and have produced various literature and other materials on the subject that have been picked up by those outside of their immediate practitioner circles (see e.g. St Giles Trust 2018).

Reflecting this heightened attention, the media have somewhat inevitably seized on the topic and regularly placed it under the public eye. As is often the case, this media spotlight has often shone quite intensely, if not always in a completely accurate direction. At times over the past few years, barely a day has gone by without another new story about County Lines or the responses to it hitting the headlines of national and local news outlets across the UK. Complementing this, a number of documentaries of varying quality, but all generally purporting to have ‘gotten to the heart’ of the issue, have been made. In various manifestations, it has also made its way onto TV screens through other formats, often appearing on shows that might not appear a natural fit on face value, such as the soap opera, Hollyoaks. For better or for worse, County Lines can therefore comfortably be considered as having become a social ‘phenomenon’ over the past few years, meeting the criteria of what Loic Wacquant (2008) has referred to as being a ‘newsy’ topic. This has various important implications. One that serves as the central focus for this book is what this means for those on the front line of the criminal justice system who are tasked with responding to and solving this ‘new problem’.

Whether it emanates from senior criminal jus...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. County Lines
• 3. Policing Drug Markets
• 4. Navigating a ‘Newsy’ Field
• 5. Policing a Crisis?
• 6. New Tactics
• 7. More of the Same?
• 8. Drug Market Priorities
• 9. Conclusion
• Back Matter