Is the multi-agency response to child criminal exploitation in Kent working?
Based on the BSc (Hons) Professional Policing Practice dissertation by David Shephard, Anglia Ruskin University, 2024
Child criminal exploitation (CCE) happens when children are groomed, coerced or controlled into criminal activity. The most familiar example is county lines, where drug networks run from major towns use young people to store, carry and sell drugs elsewhere. It is hard to see, hard to measure and too big for any single agency to tackle alone.
David Shephard's dissertation asked a direct question: is the current multi-agency approach to engaging young people involved in criminal exploitation in Kent effective? His answer is a careful one. There are signs of progress, but the data is too patchy to say how well the system is really working.
Why children are targeted
Organised crime groups recruit children because they are cheap, expendable and easier to control. Recruiting them also lets those at the top distance themselves from the offending, which makes the chain harder to trace. Grooming tends to follow a pattern: a group identifies a suitable child, works out what they need, and then shows them how to get it by joining in.
Children are being drawn in young. Research cited in the dissertation reports children as young as eight being exploited, and notes that brain development continues until around the age of 25, which helps explain poor judgement about risk.
The shift online
Technology has changed how this happens. An estimated 99% of children spend time online, and nine in ten own a mobile phone before the age of 11. Social media lets adults contact children without parents, schools or police ever knowing, and lets criminal groups advertise a glamorous lifestyle to the young people they want to recruit.
COVID-19 added to the problem. Children spent more time online, while restrictions limited the face-to-face contact that safeguarding relies on. Some early reports suggested the pandemic had helped, because fewer children were being reported missing. The dissertation argues that this probably reflected fewer chances to spot children at risk rather than less risk. It also cautions that the screen-time research involved children aged 4 to 12, younger than the typical age of exploitation, so the link should not be overstated.
Vulnerability is not the same as choice
The literature review draws on theories including Adverse Childhood Experiences, Social Learning Theory and Strain Theory. Children with mental health difficulties, addiction, disabilities or neurodiversity, those excluded from education, and those in or leaving care are described as most at risk. Behaviour that goes unchallenged by family or wider society may also continue and escalate.
Shephard is careful not to overreach. No single theory explains every case, and there is no conclusive evidence that social class alone determines who is exploited. The broader point is that a child's involvement is not simply an individual choice, which is why children are now generally treated as victims first. The legal framework supports this, through the Children Acts of 1989 and 2004, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Children and Social Work Act 2017. None of these addresses online exploitation directly.
What the numbers show
The National Referral Mechanism (NRM), set up in 2009 to identify potential victims of modern slavery, gives the clearest national picture. By the end of 2023, 7,432 children had been identified through it as victims of some form of exploitation. In 2022 there were 16,938 referrals in total, a rise of 33% on the previous year, and at least 41% involved children. Earlier figures showed that 79% of children referred were boys, and 82% of those boys were aged 15 to 17.
Rising referrals can be read in two ways. They could mean agencies are getting better at spotting and referring victims, or they could mean the problem is growing. The dissertation suggests both readings may hold. A dip in referrals between 2019 and 2020 also coincides with the pandemic, which points to disruption in identification as much as in exploitation itself.
Locally, the picture is much less clear. Kent Police recorded 979 incidents across five Medway towns in August 2024, with violence and sexual offences the most common crime type in every one. Exploited children are often victims of sexual abuse and are linked to violent groups, so some of these incidents may involve CCE. But the figures cannot show which, they cover only one month, and there is no comparison period.
The real gap is data
This is the dissertation's central finding. Crime data is too broad to show how many incidents involve exploitation, at what point children receive help, or what happens afterwards. Because the study relied on publicly available secondary data, it could not judge how effective Kent's response actually is. It could only show that the evidence needed to judge it is missing.
Recommendations
The dissertation sets out five practical proposals:
School campaigns aimed at children, parents and educators, to raise awareness and make reporting easier.
Better training for frontline staff on online grooming, including the use of AI to manipulate and impersonate, along with clearer guidance on obtaining data from large technology companies.
Legislative review, particularly of online offences and of whether sentencing reflects the harm done to exploited children and their communities.
A national standard for recording CCE, with regular audits and consistent demographic data, including which platforms a child uses and how they were targeted.
The CARE questionnaire (Child Assessment Risk Evaluation), a simple tool designed by the author for officers to use with children they believe may be involved in CCE, to support earlier and more accurate referrals.
Society has a part to play
The dissertation closes by stressing that statutory services cannot do this alone. Kent Police's commitment to child-centred policing needs support from communities, schools and families. Parents and carers, especially in an online world, are encouraged to raise concerns early rather than wait until a child is exploited without anyone else knowing.
Shephard's call for further research is specific. Forces should record who is involved, why, where it is happening, when children are identified and what support they were already receiving. Comparing approaches across counties, and with other countries, could show what works and where resources should go.
The question of whether Kent's approach is effective may not be answerable yet, but this research shows what we would need to measure to find out.
About the author: David Shephard is a member of Kent Police. He completed his BSc (Hons) in Professional Policing Practice at Anglia Ruskin University in December 2024, and this post is adapted from his dissertation.
