Author: Norbert Flasko
Policy Report: County Lines
County Lines is a criminal drug distribution network originating from mayor cities, exploiting vulnerable individuals, especially children and infiltrating into the countryside to distribute Class A drugs to a wider audience. This almost invisible web of criminal operation gives almost an impossible task to the authorities as it is so complex by its multidimensional nature as it is present in the physical and online space, also extend geologically across the UK and involves not just the trade of drugs, but exploitation, abuse, grooming and violence. This policy report will paint a picture how County Lines exploit children and at risk individuals, explore the current policies regarding substance misuse and propose new policy implications, strategies and recommendations in order to tackle the issue.
Importance and Context
Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE)
As County Lines is a form of exploitation that primarily affects children and young vulnerable and disadvantaged people, therefore it is important to explore the context of this phenomenon before we discuss the topic in detail.
CCE is very complex issue as it involves the exploitation, manipulation, coercion and control of a person under 18 to participate in a criminal/ gang activity. This complicated relationship between the offender(s) and victim(s) which might appear consensual, may also include financial/sexual abuse, grooming, violence and drug related crimes. (Firmin, 2018; Sherlock, 2019; Robinson, 2019; HM Government, 2018) According to the National Crime Agency (2017; 2019) child criminal exploitation cases on the rise, identifying County Lines as the main cause as they grow and closely linked together. Children’s Commissioner (2019) reports that around 46,000 children involved in gang activity and a further 313,000 at risk of being involved.
Regarding existing academic research and understanding the connection between CCE and County Lines, unfortunately limited amount of data available. On the contrary, there are numerous news reports on the issue, but they are not reliable, nor painting accurate picture of the phenomenon. In addition the notion of CCE hides the fact, that not only children but other vulnerable groups are also victims of exploitation in relation to County Lines (Robinson et al., 2019).
County Lines
County Lines defines a criminal operation run by urban gangs, involves drug supply to distant rural areas, child exploitation, human trafficking, modern slavery, sexual abuse and violence. In practice a criminal group infiltrates into a countryside location in order to funnel drugs into the area from a major city. The drug transported and distributed by vulnerable children, promoted on social media and coordinated through mobile phone by senior gang members. (Andell and Pitts, 2018; Robinson et al., 2019; Spicer, 2018; Coomber and Moyle, 2018)
When drug markets in big cities grow to a certain point, where dealers cannot find new customers, because “growing number of dealers is not accompanied by a growing number of users” (Ruggiero, 2010, p.51), they expand their businesses outside their city to find new users, retail their product, and grow their network and income. (National Crime Agency 2016; Coomber and Moyle, 2018)
The drug is produced in a city like London, Birmingham, Liverpool (National Crime Agency, 2016) by senior gang members. Heroin is the most frequently (79%) supplied substance, followed by crack cocaine (70%) according to the NCA and it get transported and sold by exploited children as they less likely to be searched and caught by the police. This provides the dealers anonymity and the ability to extend their network in a distance and maximise their earnings. They also exploit vulnerable people (drug addicts, elderly, individuals with mental health issues and the poor) to use their properties to accommodate the runners and distribute the drug to the local consumers, this practice called cuckooing (Spicer et al., 2019).
Cuckooing
Cuckooing, according to the police is an essential part of the County Line drug trafficking operation. Taking over – using manipulation and intimidation – a vulnerable individual’s home by a dealer or a gang provides a hidden environment (disguised from the public and the police) for their criminal activities. (Essex Police, 2018; Spicer et al., 2019).
The consistent demand for Class A drugs and the fact that the market shifted away from public sight makes the County Lines successful, as it is a constantly growing, almost invisible drug market. Also the special relationship we discussed above, between the actors (gang members, dealers, runners, consumers) makes the phenomenon even more complex and difficult to understand, dismantle and eradicate as it is not just a simple drug dealing offence, these people involved socially, financially, geographically, emotionally and sexually.
Policy Recommendations and Implications
Current policies
The UK Drug Strategy 2017 aims to tackle the nation’s drug issue with two primary goals: reducing illegal drug use and increase the numbers of people recovering from their addiction. These goals backed by four main themes, such as reducing the demand of drug use, drug supply restrictions, improving the recovery of individuals and a broad initiative to tackle harms of illegal substances. The Strategy involves health, housing and education policies all across England, however Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are developed their own unique and local approach. It also integrates alcohol focused prevention programmes, intervention and treatment into the Strategy as those substances are key drivers of delinquency.
The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 regulates the control of substances in the UK, it sorts drugs into three (A, B and C) classes and defines the penalties, aggravating and mitigating factors and provide guidelines for related offences and sentencing. The Act differentiate between possession of controlled substance and possession of drug with the intention to supply, which is counts as a trafficking offence (Drug Trafficking Act 1994), however the use of drug does not count as a crime.
Social Responsibility Act 2011 and Police Reform invented Temporary Class Drug Orders (TCDO) to provide legislators a more efficient way to answer the New Psychoactive Substances (NPS). The Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 regulates, criminalise and ban psychoactive substances, also penalise the production, supply and possession and also provides sufficient powers to authorities.
Recommendations
1, Communication Strategy
County Lines are multi-dimensional complex phenomenon challenging traditional police practices and requiring new approaches, cooperation between law enforcement agencies, third sector and local communities. Sharing intelligence and data, being transparent is crucial to identify and to take action against criminal exploitation, drug trade and gang culture (National Crime Agency, 2017).
Raising awareness within the community also an essential part of the Strategy. For instance The Children’s Society, a charity that provides prevention, mental health and supporting services for young people, especially whom involved in County Lines, CCE and substance misuse. They also lobbying and conducting research in order to influence policy makers to help vulnerable, marginalised, discriminated and at risk children.
Educating and informing young people about the forms of exploitation also essential as they likely to justify and neutralise (Sykes and Matza, 1957) their abuse, exploitation and unequal relationship with other gang members.
Working together with residents to tackle the core causes of involvement with the County Lines, such as social inequalities, poverty, housing issues, homelessness, stigma, and substance dependency could help reduce the harm done by involvement in drug related activities and could potentially prevent all form of exploitation and related offences.
2, Data Collection
In order to communicate and understand better the issues of CCE and County Lines authorities require accurate and up to date information. Therefore data collection methods need to improve in term of accuracy, consistency and quality.
First, the government should re-evaluate the CCE as a category, as it does not reflect the data collected on children nor on criminal exploitation. There should be a category that records children affected by exploitation and separate category for those who receiving aid from children’s services. This would prevent unnecessary stigmatisation and labelling. Also the category does not include those exploited individuals whom involved in County Lines, but grew into adulthood.
Second, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) and special markers should be implemented all across the services, agencies and databases, such as children’s services, police and missing person databases to achieve consistency, efficiency and to be able to create nationwide picture of the issue (Counting lives, 2019).
3, Harm Reduction Strategy & Policing
This Strategy engaging communities in order to build trust between the authorities and the community, addressing individual’s needs and reducing the harms of drug use. It also including and recognising how substance dependency affecting people, their family and the wider community. Therefore the police, third sector and health professionals should work together to help achieving the goals above and to increase public health and safety (Krupanski, 2018).
In practice authorities can create facilities and harm reduction services, such as needle programs, medication treatments, substance analysis schemes and NHS supervised drug consumption rooms. The implication of these would prioritize victims’ life over criminalisation, therefore encourage the police not to arrest and press charges when overdose happens, carry and use opioid antidote (naloxone), prioritize and protect victims and witnesses in drug related crimes and work closely with health actors (NHS).
Applying this approach to policing would benefit drug addicts, their relatives, the police and the whole community. Research (Van Den Berg et al., 2007) showed that it could reduce the prevalence rates of HIV and hepatitis C, decrease the numbers of needle injuries and increase the homeless people’s involvement with drug services. It also affects reoffending, crime rates and indirectly prison population, just as the police’s good relationship to the public. To effectively combat and prevent County Lines policing and policy making should prioritise substance harm reduction over prohibition.
4, Diversion Strategy
This Strategy encourages authorities to apply diversion, de-criminalisation and de-stigmatisation, crime prevention and rehabilitation over prosecution and criminalisation. For instance Thames Valley’s Youth Inclusion Program available targeting vulnerable, at risk children, helping them to participate in meaningful activities. In Windsor and Maidenhead a delayed a delayed prosecution scheme offering individuals under 18 to address their substance dependency, instead of entering the criminal justice system. Custody intervention, such as the Metropolitan Police’s Divert Project Scheme approaching people (age 18-25) in custody to help them reintegrate to society via education and employment.
These strategies produce significant positive results, such as lower rate of re-offending, employment after custody, however these programs does not reach every potential offender/ at risk individual, therefore it is difficult to evaluate their outcomes. Also, these programmes are dependent on funding which could compromise and jeopardise the long term results.
Conclusion
This policy report painted a picture of the County Lines by exploring the context of the issue, such as child criminal exploitation, how the drug market operates, overviewed the current legal framework and policies, highlighted the challenges authorities face and showed how this network exploit vulnerable people, especially children. In reflection to these issues, this paper drafted four recommendations in order to tackle the concerns above. The Communication Strategy proposed a coordinated data and intelligence exchange between agencies and a community based approach, where residents and at risk individuals could communicate and work together. The second point addressed data collection methods, standards and mechanisms in place. The Harm Reduction and Policing chapter suggested practical implications for the authorities, such as improve their relation to the local community and to invest facilities, services and programs. And finally the Diversion Strategy urged authorities to divert instead of criminalise, especially young offenders. However, acknowledging the complexity of County Lines, these policy recommendations would not solve the problems, rather just reduce the harm and latitude this network operates. To eradicate this phenomenon we need to deal with the underlying issues our society suffers from, such as poverty, social inequality, homelessness, but that would be another topic for policy recommendations.
Effective Prison Oversight and Independence in Scotland
By Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, Scotland and Stephen Sandham, Her Majesty’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Prisons, Scotland.
It goes without saying that prison inspection and monitoring bodies should provide important safeguards against breaches of human rights. How far do they really do so in practice? And how do we measure up in Scotland to the test of demonstrating our independence from the Scottish government and making a difference to policy and practice?I will attempt to answer these questions by briefly describing the challenges we face in Scotland, the resources we can marshal to address them, and the political context in which we manoeuvre.
It is starkly clear to anyone working in the justice system in Scotland today that the challenges presently facing the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) are enormous. The Scottish prison system is designed to deal with approximately 7,700 prisoners, but for the last 12-18 months it has regularly had more than8,200 prisoners. Despite the introduction of new legislation to discourage short-term sentences, the evidence so far suggests that these numbers will not decline for at least the next year. This has often left the SPS with 500-700 additional prisoners – the equivalent of a medium sized prison -having to be squeezed into the existing estate. This still contains a number of Victorian prisons that I have officially described as no longer fit for purpose in a modern prison system. The result has been a sustained period of overcrowding, particularly in one antiquated Victorian prison, with the inevitable consequences for prisoners. Single cells have had to be converted into double cells that sometimes breach international standards on space per prisoner. Deeply regrettable restrictions in regime and purposeful activity have had to be imposed, and prisoners have experienced frustrating delays in accessing the rehabilitation programmes that might assist them to secure progression to more open conditions, or support an application to the Parole Board.
These same pressures of overcrowding have contributed to a worryingly high level of staff sickness amongst Scottish prison staff, which in turnhas imposed more pressure on the remaining workforce. And the morale of prison staff has not been helped by media scrutiny which is nearly always negative, and not always for justifiable reasons. On the issue of staffing, I would count two further setbacks:the retirement of the currentvisionary Chief Executive, and collective disappointment at the failure to secure staff backing for a plan to professionalise the SPS workforce.
As I write this article, we are just at the start of whatever additional challenges will arise from the coronavirus. We have already seen in Italy the potential consequences of lock downs and restrictions on prison visits. It is obvious what the loss of another 20% or more of prison staff on sick leave could entail: further restrictions on hours out of cellsand other activities, and, even worse, the inability of health service staff to cope should the virus spread widely throughout our prisons.
In such situations effective monitoring of the conditions and treatment of prisoners becomes even more important. Are we up to the task here in HMIPS? I would normally have had no hesitation in saying yes, but these are not normal times, and I am acutely aware that our own capacity to monitor effectively will be impacted severely by the coronavirus.
Here’s how Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland (HMIPS) works. As Chief InspectorI am blessed here with a small but hugely dedicated team of 12 professional staff, and 120 wonderful volunteers who make up our team of Independent Prison Monitors (IPMs). Our IPMs provide a continuous programme of weekly visits by committed enthusiastic volunteers who care passionately about the treatment of prisoners. They hold prison governors to account through a series of quarterly meetings where the governor in charge meetsthe independent prison monitors, provides a report on what has been happening in the prison, and discusses the latest monitoring findings. Moreover, IPM monitoring reports help inform where we target our inspections, when we carry out a more in-depth assessment of conditions every 3 years or so, and what to focus on during each inspection. The IPMs are not merely advisory: they have a vital role in monitoring the action the prison management commits to making in response to our inspection findings. The two parts of the oversight system inform each other and, working together, provide tighter more effective monitoring of conditions than either part could achieve on its own.
Three other elements seem to mefundamental to the effectiveness of our oversight of Scotland’s prisons. Firstly, all our inspection and monitoring standards are grounded in human rights thinking. As a member of the UK National Preventive Mechanism, we are committed to doing all within our power to ensure compliance with the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), the Mandela rules, and other international standards on the treatment of prisoners. Secondly, we are able to bring in specialist knowledge and expertise from other scrutiny bodies when we go in to inspect. Thirdly, we have sufficient independence from Government and from the Scottish Prison Service to challenge policy and practicewhen we have a duty to do so, while still enjoying a constructive relationship that promotes shared understanding and recognition of the challenges facing the prison service.
Our inspection and monitoring standards were comprehensively revised three years ago with considerable input from the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC). They are independently appointed by the Scottish Parliament to promote respect for human rights everywhere in Scotland and encourage best practice in relation to their protection. The new standards have a very particular focus on the PANEL principles of Participation, Accountability, Non-discrimination andequality, Empowerment and Legality. That has really challenged our whole inspection and monitoring team to look at prisons through a human rights lens and forced us to think again about the way we pose questions to prisoners and prison staff.
We also take people from the SHRC in with us when we carry out our inspections. Their contribution has proved invaluable, particularly in challenging the SPS and indeed ourselves to think harder about the type of support provided for foreign nationals and other minority groups, and the adequacy of accommodation and other support available for disabled prisoners. We frequently conclude that not enough is being done for all these groups.
We benefit hugely too from the expertise of our other partner scrutiny agencies such as Health Improvement Scotland, Education Scotland, and the Care Inspectorate. Their combined expertise enhances our ability to assess the health, education, and progression services provided for prisoners in a way we simply couldn’t do on our own.
By far the most important aspect of our work is maintaining a delicate balance: to provide robust independent external scrutiny, but to do so in a way that maximises the prospects for influencing real change. Often it is relatively straightforward to identify and call out what is wrong and needs to be improved, but we are all aware of the number of inspection reports and thematic review reports across the world which have been published, sometimes to great applause, only to gather dust on the shelf thereafter.
In order to get anything done in the real world, our messages have to be conveyed with compassion and understanding of the pressures facing others. We need to avoid antagonising the politicians and civil servants from whom we seek change, orfatally undermining the morale of those striving hard at the sharp end of these extraordinary challenges.
For HMIPS, maintaining independence from Government is not easy –our funding comes from the Scottish Government, and we are technically Scottish Government employees. Without funding from the Scottish Government, we would not exist as an organisation and there would be little or no scrutiny of Scottish prisons at all. At the same time, HMIPS partly relies on the willingness of SPS to offer people on secondment to us. Without a few secondees from SPS, to work alongside our core HMIPS team, we would struggleto keep up to date with SPS policies, guidance, and processes. Moreover, in our experience secondees from the SPS very quickly turn from ‘poacher to gamekeeper’ and frequently know better than anyone else where the bodies are hidden or when inspectors aren’t being given the full story. For our part, we are encouraged that the SPS recognises the value that a secondment to HMIPS can have for individuals with potential and aspirations to go higher. We hope it will be seen as an integral part of career development programmes for governor grades.
Does all this mean our ability to criticise Government or the SPS is fatally compromised? Definitely not, but we do think carefully when drafting our reports how they will be received. We try to balance the identification of issues that need to be addressed with praise for good practice, and for the often outstanding efforts of staff at all levels of the SPS in extremely difficult circumstances. We always provide an opportunity for the SPS and the NHS to comment on our draft reports, so any factual inaccuracies can be corrected before publication, and we will adjust our assessment scores and accompanying narrative where persuaded by additional evidence. Moreover, while some might see the symbiotic nature of our relationship with the Scottish Government as a weakness, in my experience it does allow ready access to key decision makers within the Scottish Government and to Scottish Ministers themselves. It is also unquestionably the case that our recent reports and evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s different committees, along with inspection reports still in draft, have been a major influence in decisions by the Scottish Government to increase funding for the SPS and further energised action by the SPS to modernise the prison estate. Finally, we fully recognise that we have some way to go to achieve the lofty ambition set out in our strategic plan: to be recognised globally as at the leading edge of good practice in the scrutiny of prisons. Nevertheless, I am sure you willagree with me that it is always good to aim high!
The Road from Crime
What can we learn from those former prisoners who have successfully “desisted” from criminal behaviour or “gone straight?
The exit at the prison gate often appears to be a revolving door with nearly 60% of released prisoners re-offending within two years of their release. Prisons and probation departments have, almost literally, tried everything in efforts to rehabilitate offenders over the past century, but the results have been uniformly bleak leading many to conclude that “nothing works.” In the past ten years, however, a group of criminologists have hit upon what should have been an obvious source of inspiration for prisoner rehabilitation: the other 40 per cent!
In this timely and compelling documentary, Allan Weaver, a Scottish ex-offender turned probation officer (author of the book So You Think You Know Me?) asks a simple question: What can we learn from those former prisoners who have successfully “desisted” from criminal behaviour or “gone straight?”
Starting where it all began for him on the streets of his hometown and in Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow, Allan sets off to understand how individuals like himself get caught up in cycles of crime and punishment, and how they break out of these patterns and move on to new lives. This journey takes him across the UK, meeting an array of ex-prisoners and ex-prisoner activist groups, probation leaders, and criminological experts from London to Washington, DC.
He discovers that much of what the criminal justice process does actually leads to more re-offending through the labelling and stigmatisation of ex-offenders. Indeed, few ex-prisoners say they were “rehabilitated” by the criminal justice system, but many blame their experiences with the justice system for keeping them trapped in cycles of crime and punishment.
Allan learns that real change more typically involves processes of self-discovery and mutual support. Allan discovers that ‘desistance’ from criminality is an internal change process although it is almost never done without support from the outside. Ex-prisoners speak in detail about the remarkable people who believed in them when others had lost hope, and about realising that they too had something to offer others, including, for many, their children. Desistance for them is about realising one is more than just the sum of one’s crimes and re-discovering one’s humanity, potential, and true self.
The big question – especially pressing for Allan as a probation officer – is whether we can bottle and package these often intangible dynamics into our criminal justice interventions? Can criminal justice processes be improved by a better understanding of how the change processes in desistance from crime really work? How would the criminal justice system be different if it were run by people like Allan who had been through the process themselves?
To answer this, Allan finds a fascinating world of ex-prisoner-led mutual aid and activist groups championing a new model of criminal justice practice. Like Allan, many of the ex-prisoners find meaning and purpose in their lives by helping others to avoid the mistakes they made. They might also have the answer for tackling the enduring problem of criminal recidivism.
What is county lines?
Children as young as 7 are being put in danger by criminals who are taking advantage of how innocent and inexperienced these young people are. Any child can be exploited, no matter their background.
Criminal exploitation is also known as ‘county lines’ and is when gangs and organised crime networks groom and exploit children to sell drugs. Often these children are made to travel across counties, and they use dedicated mobile phone ‘lines’ to supply drugs.
How many young people are affected by ‘county lines’?
No one really knows how many young people across the country are being forced to take part, but The Children’s Commissioner estimates there are at least 46,000 children in England who are involved in gang activity. It is estimated that around 4,000 teenagers in London alone are being exploited through child criminal exploitation, or ‘county lines’.
Tragically the young people exploited through ‘county lines’ can often be treated as criminals themselves.
We want these vulnerable children to be recognised as victims of trafficking and exploitation. We want them to receive the support they need to deal with the trauma they have been through.
How are children being exploited?
Criminals are deliberately targeting vulnerable children – those who are homeless, experiencing learning difficulties, going through family breakdowns, struggling at school, living in care homes or trapped in poverty.
These criminals groom children into trafficking their drugs for them with promises of money, friendship and status. Once they’ve been drawn in, these children are controlled using threats, violence and sexual abuse, leaving them traumatised and living in fear.
However they become trapped in criminal exploitation, the young people involved feel as if they have no choice but to continue doing what the criminals want.
What are the signs of criminal exploitation and county lines?
- Returning home late, staying out all night or going missing
- Being found in areas away from home
- Increasing drug use, or being found to have large amounts of drugs on them
- Being secretive about who they are talking to and where they are going
- Unexplained absences from school, college, training or work
- Unexplained money, phone(s), clothes or jewellery
- Increasingly disruptive or aggressive behaviour
- Using sexual, drug-related or violent language you wouldn’t expect them to know
- Coming home with injuries or looking particularly dishevelled
- Having hotel cards or keys to unknown places.
SCRA Going to a Hearing
Life Inside Bali’s Infamous Kerobokan Prison
To many, Bali’s Kerobokan jail is a place of creepy fascination, a repository of misery in an island playground. But what’s it really like in there?
For the first time a TV crew has obtained virtually unrestricted access to all corners of Kerobokan’s men’s prison. The Foreign Correspondent team spend a week roaming the jail, filming and interviewing prisoners and guards to capture life inside.
“Yeah, this is my little piece of paradise” – Bali Nine member Matthew Norman.
Copenhagen strives to fix drug problem
Authorities in Copenhagen are set to open a second facility where drug addicts can shoot up under the supervision of social workers. The goal was to clean up the capital’s streets, but not everyone’s happy.
It’s a grey and rainy Wednesday morning in Vesterbro, Copenhagen’s former meat-packing district, but 40-year-old drug addict Annette is in a buoyant mood. Relaxing in a light and airy first floor office in the city’s drug consumption house, she told DW why this place has changed her life.
“Until quite recently I was homeless. The only options I had when I needed to take drugs were to hide in a basement or huddle behind a car – in the snow sometimes.”
The “fixing room” – as the Danes call it – allows users to inject hard drugs away from the streets, without fear of being arrested. (Nurses and social workers make up the staff at Copenhagen’s fixing room.)
“It can be hard to find a good vein on a drug user and often I’d have to try 15 times before I hit the right one. It was deeply unpleasant, but that’s what life was like for me.”
Hard tracks
The past six years of drug abuse have taken their toll on Annette’s body. Her cheeks are hollow; her denim jacket hangs loosely over her tiny frame, and all but one of her teeth are missing. Perhaps her upbeat demeanor is down to her having flushed cocaine into her veins shortly before I met her. But this safe haven for addicts has given her some dignity back, she says.
“I don’t need to hide anymore or be afraid that someone walking past while I’m shooting up in public might kick me and say: ‘Get out of my way, junkie.’ … My drug habits shouldn’t be anyone else’s business.”
While there have been more than 60 overdoses in the fixing room since it opened last year, no one has died. Drug dealing is not tolerated inside and police are a constant presence outside the yellow brick building, keeping a watchful eye on those hovering at the entrance.
While the surrounding area has been gentrified, the square next to the facility has been the center of Scandinavia’s biggest open drug scene since the late 1970s. Each day, between 500 and 800 people linked to drugs come to the area says manager Rasmus Koberg Christiansen.
Inspired by similar facilities in Germany, Switzerland and Spain, social workers and local residents campaigned for a consumption room in Vesterbro, in the hope of reducing death by overdose and dirty needles left lying in the streets. When a new government came to power in Denmark in 2011, funding was made available.
“After the first day, there had been 130 injections in the consumption room. We thought if we could have between 100 and 200 injections within a year, it would be a success. So after one day, we had achieved the goal. Now we see between 200-300 injections in the room a day,” says Christiansen.
According to a report from Copenhagen Council, the amount of drug paraphernalia left lying around the streets has been reduced by more than half since the drug consumption room opened.
However, while there may be less dirty needles in the area, the number of drug users in the area has not dropped.
“This place is only part of the solution. Our goal is to provide clean, calm and safe drug injections for the people who are using drugs in this area. But if the users tell us they want to do something else with their lives than take drugs, we can help them get treatment.”
Public reaction
“We are blessed that this neighborhood is positive about drug consumption. The problem is that the very close neighbors are very frustrated. That is very understandable, because of course we provide the service, but the users are still here and they can be very emotional, loud and sometimes violent.”
That frustration is strongly felt by Michael Knudsen, the caretaker of Rystensteen Gymnasium, the high school across the road.
“When the fixing room opened last year, we went along with it because they said it was temporary. But we were worried because we thought it would mean more drug users on our doorstep, and unfortunately that’s exactly what happened,” he says.
“Sometimes drug addicts will enter the school premises, use our toilets and computers and smartphones will disappear. Despite the fact that there’s a consumption room right there, they still inject drugs right under our noses and that scares our students. We even caught one of them selling drugs inside the school recently. Sometimes they are aggressive and it’s just a bad situation for us. Our students don’t feel safe,” he says.
While Knudsen has sympathy for what the fixing room does for improving the lives of drug addicts, he says the school wants it to go.
“We’ll have to find a political solution to this to move it somewhere else. We’re all in favor of helping drug users, but we just can’t live with the facility being ten meters from our students.”
Clearly living next door to where drug addicts are injecting is a challenge and the expansion of the consumption room this month is likely to provoke more anger. But the idea of giving addicts some dignity back and cleaning up the streets seems to have caught on – recently a British government minister went on a fact-finding mission to Copenhagen to see how the fixing room worked. Brighton Council in the south of England is now considering opening something similar.
In Scotland under the current legal framework this kind of facility does not exist (and will not, until the law changes) as the Police would have no discretion in the matter of arresting people who possess drugs. However in order to fight Scotland drug problems we should first reduce the harm these substances with an NHS initiative as this epidemic is a public health issue primarily.
The number of drug-related deaths increased by 27% in 2018 to reach 1,187 – the largest number ever recorded and more than double the number recorded a decade ago. Most of the increase in drug-related death rates has occurred in the 35-44 year old and 45-54 year old age groups. Greater Glasgow & Clyde had the highest rate at 0.23 per 1,000 population, followed by Tayside and Ayrshire & Arran with rates of 0.18 and 0.17 per 1,000 population respectively. National Records of Scotland
The Valuable Role of Independent Prison Monitors
That the Parliament acknowledges that, on 31 August 2015, the first independent prison monitors (IPM) went into Scotland’s 15 prisons, including HMP Glenochil in Clackmannanshire, to ensure humane treatment and conditions for prisoners; believes that, in the months leading up to the launch, HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland (HMIPS) had been on a journey of change by developing a new structure for prison monitoring to replace the previous work done by the long-established prison visiting committees; notes that IPMs are volunteers from communities who visit prisons on at least a weekly basis to observe practices and to speak to prisoners about their experiences; understands that this information about conditions and treatment is collated and that the regional and national findings help detect patterns and provide information for continuous improvement; notes that this system is supported by a team of four prison monitoring co-ordinators based at HMIPS along with an advisory group with expertise in human rights, criminology, prisons and healthcare; acknowledges that each IPM holds statutory authority under the Public Services Reform (Inspection and Monitoring of Prisons) (Scotland) Order 2015; believes that the IPMs play an essential role in the justice system in aiming to ensure that prisoners’ human rights are upheld and that life in prison contributes to rehabilitation; considers that the IPM system has brought a new group of people from a wide range of backgrounds into prisons to act as the eyes and ears of prisoners and their families, and believes that the commitment, motivation and enthusiasm of the growing team of IPMs has been tangible over the last four years and this system has gone a long way to improving Scotland’s prisons, as well as informing best practice in independent monitoring to protect prisoners’ human rights.
Murder Trial: The Disappearance of Margaret Fleming
A mystery disappearance, a suspected secret guarded for 16 years, a murder trial in search of answers – two-part documentary Murder Trial: The Disappearance of Margaret Fleming has unprecedented access to the investigation and subsequent trial of co-accused Edward Cairney and Avril Jones.
Filmed by Bafta Scotland award-winning director Matt Pinder, this groundbreaking documentary takes the audience into the very centre of the trial at Glasgow’s High Court and beyond as carers Cairney and Jones face trial for the murder of 35-year-old Margaret Fleming.
Offering a compelling insight into the work of the police and prosecutors in bringing the two suspects to trial, the documentary also shines a light on the work of the defence teams representing the two accused of Margaret’s murder.
In 2016, an application for a Personal Independence Payment raised suspicions. When authorities couldn’t contact the applicant, the police were called, and it was discovered that a 35-year-old woman had seemingly vanished from a village on the west coast of Scotland. Margaret Fleming was a vulnerable adult understood by authorities to be in the full-time care of Cairney and Jones, living in a remote coastal property in the village of Inverkip. But when police started questioning Margaret’s friends and family, they were told no-one had seen her since 1999. In the 2019 murder trial that unfolds, Cairney and Jones stand accused of killing her, disposing of her body and claiming benefits in her name for 16 years.
With remarkable in-court access to an unfolding trial that gripped Scotland, Murder Trial: The Disappearance of Margaret Fleming tells the story of a prosecution without a body and a community without answers. Filmed both inside and outside of the courtroom, this case takes viewers deep into the inner workings of Scotland’s justice system as a small community is coming to terms with the prospect of a potentially brutal and calculated crime occurring unnoticed in its midst.
Beyond Barriers 