PCC welcomes new legislation to tackle criminal exploitation

Police and Crime Commissioner Jane Mudd has welcomed new legislation to protect children, young people and vulnerable adults from criminal exploitation.

The Crime and Policing Bill, which is being introduced to Parliament this week, will make child criminal exploitation, and the practice of “cuckooing”, specific criminal offences, giving the police, and the criminal justice system, greater powers to protect victims.

It will target people who groom children into carrying out criminal acts, and also criminals who take over the homes of vulnerable people to use it as a base for illegal activities, a practice known as cuckooing. Both types of exploitation are regularly carried out by county lines drug dealers and organised crime gangs.

Police and Crime Commissioner Jane Mudd said: “Criminal gangs target children, young people and vulnerable adults as part of their criminal activity, dragging them into a life of crime from which it is difficult to escape. This important new legislation places a firmer focus on targeting those perpetrators of crime rather than the vulnerable victims they have exploited.

“It will give us new powers across policing and the criminal justice system, and enable us to make a difference for our communities.”