Catch22 welcomes the announcement from UK Home Office that child criminal exploitation (CCE) will become a specific criminal offence in the pending Crime and Policing Bills.
For too long, people grooming and exploiting children for criminal gain have remained unpunished or have not been prevented from offending, leaving young people at continued risk of significant harm from this form of child abuse.
We have long called for a national CCE strategy to enable a coordinated national approach to address child exploitation, so that all partners can work together effectively to identify both victims and perpetrators. This legislation is a crucial step towards this, and rightly addresses the problem by focusing on tough action against perpetrators.
Last year, our County Lines, Exploitation and Missing From Home services across England supported 3,684 children and young people.
Based on the evidence and insight from our services, we urge the Government to go further than this new legislation. We want to see:
- A statutory definition of CCE to enhance prevention and to better protect victims by ensuring clarity, awareness, and consistency across relevant agencies, including the police and courts.
- Robust implementation of the new offences and proposed prevention orders by ensuring awareness training and support for the police and other professionals – an implementation that will not be dependent on children’s own disclosures but on effective contextual safeguarding which includes online environments.
- Investment in specialist and clinical support for child victims of criminal exploitation to reduce re-victimisation and address the longer term impact, especially on mental health.
We thank UK Home Office and the Government’s Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime for the opportunities to share our learning in the development of this legislation. We now look forward to continuing to work together on the Crime and Policing Bill so that children will be safe from exploitation and harm.
Read the Government’s announcement
Take a look at this animation of our Risk and Resilience model