AGM and joint Meeting of the Group with the APPG on Knife Crime: 26th February 2020
APPG for Drug Policy Reform AGM followed by meeting in collaboration with the APPG on Knife Crime
AGM and joint Meeting Minutes:
26 February 2020, 14:00-15:30, House of Commons, Committee Room 16
Attendees:
Parliamentarians:
Baroness Meacher
Baroness Hamwee
Dean Russell MP
David Johnston MP
Lord Dear
Baroness Jones
Huw Merriman MP
Sarah Jones MP
Jeff Smith MP
Crispin Blunt MP
Lord Hastings
Lord Ramsbotham
Tommy Sheppard MP
Ronnie Cowan MP
Mohammad Yasin MP
Ruth Cadbury MP
Anne McLaughlin MP
Marcus Fysh MP
Lord Hylton
Speakers:
Dr Paul Andell, University of Suffolk
Arnold Yousaf, St Giles
Harvey Regrave, Crest Advisory
External:
Anna Bennet – Crest Advisory
John Poynton – Red Thread
Ben Westlake – Red Thread
Jonathan Rallings – County Councils Network
Dr Shermile Ker – Constituent of Crispin Blunt
Precious Tamuno – Gromodel
Victoria Anns
Hannah Chetwynd – Childrens’ Society
Bethany Baggaley – Red Thread
Apologies:
Caroline Lucas MP
Alison Thewliss MP
Theo Clarke MP
Sarah Champion MP
Lord Selkirk
Lord Bethell
Ruth Edwards MP
Gavin Robinson MP
David Mundell MP
Lord Wigley
Baroness Thornton
AGM - Chaired by Jeff Smith MP
Co-Chair of the APPG for Drug Policy Reform opened the session by thanking attendees for coming.
He explained the purpose of this part of the meeting is to hold DPRG’s AGM, and introduced the election of Chairs and officers.
Jeff turned to the election of the chairs:
Three previous co-Chairs put themselves forward: Jeff Smith, Crispin Blunt, Baroness Meacher. Group unanimously re-elected them.
Tommy Sheppard MP proposed the group should have a 4th co-Chair representing the SNP. Attendees indicated they’d be happy for someone to be nominated but resolved that secretariat should first double check APPG rules.
Ronnie Cowan was re-elected as a vice-Chair.
Caroline Lucas and Lord Norton were re-elected as vice-Chairs in absentia.
Alison Thewliss was elected as an Officer in absentia.
Jeff presented the APPG’s 2020 workplan to the group:
Push the government to make improve access to medical cannabis for patients who need them
Push the government to change or remove barriers to research into controlled substances such as psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine, particularly around scheduling
Push all political parties to support an end to the prohibition of Cannabis
To push government policy to adopt evidence-based harm-reduction approaches to drug policy (e.g. drug consumption rooms, drug safety testing, heroin-assisted treatment)
To change the overall policy approach, particularly through moving emphasis away from prohibition towards harm-reduction and health.
Any objections/comments on the five priorities for the year ahead were requested. No objections are made. Jeff indicated that further feedback should be sent to his office via email.
Joint meeting with the APPG on Knife Crime - introduction by Crispin Blunt MP
Crispin Blunt MP begins with a brief history of the APPG and outlines its purpose.
Refers to the huge scale of drug death in UK and especially Scotland, and the success of Portugal in their drug-policy approach.
Work of the APPG is to deliver health-based, evidence-based recommendations to government. It is also to reinforce efforts as parliamentarians by leading academic authorities.
Introduction by Sarah Jones MP
Speaks about need to look at knife crime not from a criminal point of view, but from a public health point of view.
Working closely with groups like Youth Violence Commission and making recommendations to the Home Office.
Presentations and audience questions - Jointly chaired by Crispin Blunt MP and Sarah Jones MP
Crispin introduces:
Dr Paul Andell:
Provides background as Professor of Criminology. Uses ‘key performance’ discussions with drug dealers to discuss changing middle-market. Discussion showed that some gangs had moved from street to expanding national crime across the country.
County Lines as main point of discussion: they cross many targets, groom people from a young age.
Children’s Commissioner research suggests 27,000 children are now in gangs, with a possible further 60,000 affected.
Perpetration of violence against and by young people is exceptional.
Drug markets expanding across new markets – gangs are changing in nature. These new supply networks can be called ‘local organised crime groups.’
New organised crime groups: Includes the way groups evolve once key individuals are removed (through prison or leaving group).
Speaking to the young about local, organised crime:
Many from estates, limited aspirations, lost opportunities; what should be supplied by local government are now supplied by local governance of drugs and gangs.
Reference to measures used in the past having caused the ‘professionalisation’ of the market, rather than reduction. And, users/dealers removed from street to prison, then reoffending or resulting in drug-related deaths.
Human suffering: Those exploiting use suffering as a commodity – not a negative – of the drug gang business.
Therefore, we need to know how to address this problem by doing it locally and centrally.
Separation of markets: It is essential to separate the different markets to prevent overlapping.
At the top end, 2% of drug users account for 50% of all acquisitive crime (heroin). It is essential to take the illicit market and medicalise it. This prevents markets overlapping, targets supply/demand: four strand approach – enforcement, situation prevention, intervention (such as youth work, or statutory duty for offenders) community development (include local communities in every step of the process).
Arnold Yousaf - SOS+ Project Development Lead at St Giles Trust
Introduced himself and St Giles: A charity that works with extremely disadvantaged people, education training, community services. It supports young people in improving their lives.
Lived experience: Attempting to change the attitudes of ‘young learners’ through exposing them to the realities of being in a gang through medium of individuals with their own lived experience.
Will focus on county-lines: serious violence is a by-product of county-lines.
Offers experience: Spoke about his upbringing in Newham, experience with crime (including kidnap), grooming, charged with murder (not convicted).
Speaks about lack of guidance and real insight: At that time, would have been essential to have guidance from someone who could have spelled out what it’s really like to be involved in gangs.
Using the correct terms: Young people call it ‘country’/‘going cunch’, not ‘county-lines’ – that’s a more recent academic term. ‘Going country’ has been happening for decades – in that sense county lines is not as much of a new phenomenon as it is often depicted to be.
Distinct from county lines is postcode based turf wars. Uses the example of two rival gangs in South London to illustrate. Within their areas, drugs can be sold – but not in local surrounding areas because this is dominated by other gangs.
A local conflict may initially start over a drugs dispute. But the reason they escalate and endure is not really anything to do with drugs anymore – it’s to do with an inability to resolve conflict productively, among other factors. The rival gangs are not seeking to take over each other’s’ turf, it becomes a ‘tit for tat’ situation in terms of getting revenge for previous attacks, which is what causes escalating violence and deaths. This is also why so many young people carry knives.
Knives: These young people would rather be caught by police with a knife, than by an enemy without one.
Generational changes: These gang conflicts change over time, especially as individuals go to prison or disappear. You may have two area gangs who were once allies and are now enemies as the people who used to be involved are in prison.
Therefore, most of the inner-city violence is not caused by turf wars directly. Turf wars are when gangs are fighting over a specific location in order to possess territory and obtain power and control.
Turf wars do apply to county lines. For example, those from major cities are fighting with each other to control county lines within regional areas. Children are at the forefront of this.
Attitudinal change is linked to opportunity. These matters are so complex, but multiply disadvantaged young people, often in poverty, will be looking for short-term gratification – they see a life making money from a gang as a much more relevant opportunity than the idea that they might be able to get a good job in 5 years by working hard at school. Change is about providing realistic alternative opportunities from credible role models.
Harvey Redgrave, Crest Advisory:
What is driving serious violence; drugs.
The supply of Class A drugs has increased internationally and domestically, which appears to have impacted supply and demand for drugs in the UK: key indicators suggest supply of cocaine and heroin (the drug most associated with supply-side violence) is up and class A drug use up.
Drug markets are not the only driver of serious violence, but do contribute significantly.
Changing markets; Drug market dynamics have changed – saturated UK markets are leading to regional expansion within the UK. Drug use (and violence) is rising fast outside the major cities.
County lines: There was a 48% increase in the number of referrals to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) for under 18s between 2017 and 2018, which was reported as being almost entirely related to county lines.
Different measures: There has been a fall in the number of successful prosecutions; with drug trafficking offences having fallen by 34% since 2010 for drug offences, and drug possession by 47%.
There are wide gaps in knowledge that undermine efforts to tackle the problem: Significant gaps exist in the intelligence picture, most notably at middle market level and where drug markets cross police and law enforcement boundaries or remits.
We can identify a broad narrative arc regarding the relationship between drug market and violence crime trends in England and Wales.
What does this mean for government? There is a need to build a richer intelligence picture. The need to invest in prevention. There is a need for tougher enforcement in some areas (e.g. border control).
School exclusion: Explains in part why drug use in children is at a 10-year high.
National Crime Agency: drugs is the golden-thread that links a large proportion of the crime, and NCA aren’t focusing on this.
Questions
Dean Russell
Re ‘cuckooing:’ what can we do to intervene in this, how can we distinguish the people who are not genuine ‘carers’/’family’ of the vulnerable people?
Is it fair to say that rail companies should take more responsibility for spotting kids travelling across county lines?
Baroness Meacher
Do you support police forces that have de-prioritised arrests for minor drug offences in favour of rediverting people to treatment (e.g. Durham)?
In response -
Paul Andell
With regard to cuckooing, there are situations where people claim aliases, for example as a carer.
What we are seeing now is a professionalisation of the market, where substance users are deliberately targeting individuals through drugs, sex or both, and as a result individual would stay with them for a period of several months.
Social prevention: There has to be more outreach and attached work targeting vulnerable people. It starts with care from the neighbourhood as a whole.
With regard to trains safeguarding, we need to think more about situational safeguarding, by offering further training and awareness to organisations, as well as increasing capacity of multi-agency safeguarding groups.
Harvey Redgrave
In support of schemes such as in Durham, butin favour of police prioritising more arrests (and more data collection) in some areas like with smugglers at the borders.
Holistic picture: We do not have the data we need to present a full picture.
Question from audience
Marmot review 10 years on - How important is it to look at the impact on life chances of those who have a criminal record. How do we make sure that these people have access to charities like St Giles?
Harvey response:
Arrest is not a way to make progress. Prevention is much better than cure. However, it is not either/or dichotomy.
Further contributions from audience.
Answer from Arnold Yousaf:
When looking at the long-term eradication of gangs as a whole, decriminalisation of drugs is not the sole answer.
E.g. legalising drugs now wouldn’t suddenly end postcode wars
New markets of synthetic drugs or prescription drugs are also a potential threat
Constituent of Crispin Blunt, mother of victim of child exploitation:
For those with neurodisability, ADHD and ASD there is a woeful lack of support from the beginning. Lack of joined up services for her son - county are waiting for the child to turn 18 before moving him out of the area, despite the fact that he is on a child protection plan.
Provisions for schools have failed him
Agencies have failed him – no practitioners have known him throughout. What meaningful intervention can now be made to ensure that my son can be helped, with the exception of going to prison?
Sarah Jones response:
This was a theme that occurred repeatedly in my debate this morning on school exclusion. I agree that agencies intervene, but at the wrong time.
Question from audience member:
Collaboration: If this committee is going to do anything tangible, it has to be over the collaboration of services.
Jeff Smith question:
In follow-on to previous question about effects of decriminalisation on the market, what would the effects of decrim/legalisation be on the prevalence of county lines?
Paul Andell:
Cannabis can act as a gateway drug when it comes to dealing, the associations by those dealers are clear. By separating the harder drugs from less-impactful drugs (e.g. legalising cannabis), part of market would be taken away and possibly fewer dealers recruited.
Minimising impact of heroin on the market – accounts for vast chunk of market but demand is from a small minority of users. If we really focus on decriminalising those users and getting them into HAT and further treatment, we can reshape the market and make it less harmful.
Arnold Yousaf:
If we introduce cannabis, we need to carefully monitor what goes into it. The long-term mental health effects are powerful and should not be understated.
With regards to different agencies, the help people need get should be holistic. What mental health agencies are they using? How do we actually disrupt county lines, rather than just form arrests?
Closing messages
Sarah Jones gives thanks to all
Discusses upcoming event, Knife Crime APPG taking 70 young people into Downing Street
Crispin Blunt MP anticipates the next meeting of the DPRG:
Discussion about the need to reschedule psilocybin to enable research into it as a cure to PTSD.
Further details to be published
Thanks speakers.