Challenging and challenges of police responses to cuckooing

The term cuckooing has emerged in the last decade, alongside county lines in academic literature and policing (Spicer, 2021; Coomber and Moyle, 2018; NCA, 2017). Cuckooing describes the process by which the home of a vulnerable person is taken over by another person for the purposes of crime, most often for drug dealing or storage but also for sex work, financial abuse or storage of other illicit goods. This project will focus on expanding the knowledge on the overlaps between victimisation and criminalisation in relation to cuckooing and how this is impacted by the police response to this activity.

The vulnerability of the victim can arise in different ways-for example, because of drug dependency, participation in sex work, learning difficulties, disability or criminal history. Professionals working in law enforcement and social care anecdotally report difficulties engaging victims in investigations and prosecutions, often because of their reliance on the person exploiting them. This resistance can be regarded as complicity and thus creates barriers to successful prosecution. For some victims, once they have been encouraged to take part in offending, they feel unable to approach authorities for fear of criminalisation, losing housing and other networks of support.

The barriers to supporting vulnerable adults can result in the most extreme outcomes, including murder (Cornwall Adult Protection Committee, 2007; BBC, 2022). Fatal cases have highlighted barriers including previous criminality and drug dependency, a lack of understanding of support frameworks, perceived complicity and failures of authorities to effectively communicate with and support victims with disabilities(ibid). Addressing these barriers is essential to prevent further such tragic situations and because failure to adequately investigate or to respond to cuckooing, in line with adult safeguarding duties (s.42 Care Act 2014) can result in legal action against local authorities, including the police, for failure to protect the right to life, the right to protection from inhumane or degrading treatment (Mandelstam, 2013).

Existing research has focused on the techniques by which people engage victims including forming fake friendships and enticements followed by more severe forms of threats and coercion, and has largely concentrated on drug markets (Spicer, 2021, 2020; Harding, 2020; HM Government,2020; Coomber and Moyle, 2018). This research has underlined the complexities of the relationships between victims and perpetrators of cuckooing and the challenges that this presents to agencies charged with countering cuckooing.