Child Criminal Exploitation, County Lines & Victim Identification: An Exploratory Study

本研究探讨了在英国青年司法系统的背景下，参与县际毒品交易的年轻人识别和被识别为儿童犯罪剥削（CCE）的受害者的过程。尽管人们呼吁承认郡县年轻人的CCE经历，但“受害者”这个标签仍然被选择性地使用，许多受CCE影响的年轻人仍然被定罪并被贴上罪犯的标签。这种疏忽对受影响者的生命造成严重后果。然而，目前我们对与儿童暴力有关的受害者地位形成的过程知之甚少。本研究通过对50名青少年司法从业人员和17名受CCE影响的年轻人的深入访谈，以及在18个月的时间里，对英国青少年犯罪服务中心与CCE受害者识别相关的活动进行了100多个小时的观察，解决了这一问题。本研究采用扎根理论的方法，探讨了受害者识别过程中的三个关键影响因素。首先，它考察了青年司法从业人员的角色，重点关注他们的“剥削”和“受害者”概念的影响，这是由他们工作的组织环境所塑造的。其次，它探讨了受害者识别作为一个相互作用的过程，研究了从业人员与年轻人之间、年轻人与其家人和同龄人之间的关系如何影响受害者识别过程。最后，分析了年轻人拒绝、声称和接受CCE受害者身份的原因。通过对受害者身份归属作为一个持续的谈判和再谈判过程的探索，本研究揭示了受害者身份识别的新方面，挖掘了其关系性质，发展了“受害者身份稀缺”的概念，并展示了在青年司法系统背景下与受害者身份识别相关的持续挑战。这项研究还向建立“批判性青年受害者学”迈出了第一步，该研究涉及年轻人在受害者识别过程中的经历。在政策和实践方面，这项研究表明，由于受害者身份识别过程经常失败，因此无法充分满足受社区暴力影响的年轻人的需求。这项研究提倡一种以社会伤害为重点的方法，这种方法超越了通过分配受害者地位来评估支持的值得性，而是着眼于我们对参与县界线的所有年轻人的需要和他们所经历的伤害作出反应的集体责任。

This research explores the processes by which young people involved in county lines drug dealing identify, and are identified, as victims of child criminal exploitation (CCE) in the context of the English youth justice system. Despite calls to recognise experiences of CCE among young people involved in county lines, the label 'victim' is still selectively applied, and many young people affected by CCE are still criminalised and labelled as offenders. This oversight has serious consequences for the lives of those affected. Yet at present we know very little about the processes by which victim status emerges in relation to CCE. This research addresses this oversight, drawing on in-depth interviews with 50 youth justice practitioners and 17 young people affected by CCE, and on over 100 hours of observations of activities relating to CCE victim identification within an English Youth Offending Service, conducted over the course of 18 months. Using a grounded theory approach, this research explores three key influences on processes of victim identification. Firstly, it examines the roles of youth justice practitioners, focusing on the impact of their conceptualisations of 'exploitation' and 'victimhood', as shaped by the organisational contexts in which they work. Secondly, it explores victim identification as an interactional process, examining how relationships between practitioners and young people, and between young people and their families and peers, influence processes of victim identification. Finally, it analyses young people's reasons for rejecting, claiming, and accepting, status as CCE victims. Through its exploration of the attribution of victim status as an ongoing process of negotiation and renegotiation, this research sheds light on new facets of victim identification, excavating its relational nature, developing the concept of the 'scarcity of victimhood', and demonstrating the ongoing challenges associated with victim identification in the context of the youth justice system. This research also takes the first step towards establishing a 'critical youth victimology', which engages with young people's experiences of processes of victim identification. With regard to policy and practice, this research demonstrates that, because they so often fail, processes of victim identification do not adequately serve the needs of young people affected by CCE. This research advocates for a social harm-focused approach which looks beyond the assessment of deservingness of support through the allocation of victim status, towards our collective responsibility to respond to the needs of all young people involved in county lines and the harms that they have experienced.