Hidden in Plain Sight: Young Children Groomed Into Gangs for a life of crime
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There are parts of our country where the state is completely failing in its duty to protect vulnerable children. This goes beyond failing individuals. It is a failure that affects whole communities, for generation after generation. So often these are already the most marginalised families. Impossible to overestimate how important poverty is as a driver for so many of the social problems ruining and holding back lives. Yet this epidemic of county lines, criminal exploitation and serious violence is not only limited to the most deprived parts of inner-city Britain. Children from suburban, middle-class England being groomed by criminals who have spotted a vulnerability and moved in with clinical ruthlessness while a family’s pleas for help go unanswered.
Sam Smith Co-Founder of Genuine Futures visited his home town of Bolton to the streets he grew up on to highlight this huge problem he said:
This is a serious issue a civil society problem. We need to come together to tackle this head on I am hearing stories of young children aged just 9 years old selling heroin on our streets it’s frighting.
The report highlighted it’s a national problem, and it is hidden in plain sight, an open secret among those professionals who work with vulnerable children.
The police, who spend so much of their time having to step in to cover for other struggling services, know it is happening. So do schools who are having to do more and more beyond simply teaching, and so do those working in A&E who treat countless young people for knife or gunshot wounds. The social workers and others working in children’s social care know it is happening because they deal with the missing children and teenagers who are being dumped miles from home in dangerous unregulated accommodation. Charities know it is happening, and they are picking up the pieces, trying to build resilience, overwhelmed with requests for help. The public know it is happening too. They see and read the gruesome headlines, and some of them live with the consequences. The politicians know it is happening, even if it easy for some to turn the other way or sweep it all under the carpet. I believe these problems are a national threat to our country’s prosperity and security, a threat which is ruining lives and scarring communities.
Read the report here