Chaotic conceptualisation,hyper-chronocentrism and cautionary tales: A cultural realist analysis of County Lines

Introduction

A decade has now passed since the National Crime Agency published their first report on ‘County Lines’ drug supply (NCA, 2015). In addition to coining this neologism and presenting a baseline assessment of its features, the document’s core aim was to raise awareness about it. Tracing the phenomenon’s extraordinary trajectory since this formal emergence, it is safe to say this aim has been achieved. County Lines has become embedded in the cultural zeitgeist, generating significant attention across political, policy and practitioner domains, as well as becoming established in the public consciousness. The nature and volume of media coverage has played a key role in this. Aligning with various ‘news values’ (Jewkes, 2015), the involvement of children, notions of risk, presence of violence and a sense of proximity have all regularly been focused on. Perhaps most significant in its rise to prominence, however, has been its supposed ‘novelty’, with much of the discourse surrounding County Lines framed around it being ‘new’. This includes it being a ‘new’ development in how drugs are supplied, as well as presenting ‘new’ harms such as ‘Child Criminal Exploitation’ and ‘cuckooing’. However, nothing can stay new forever. The County Lines phenomenon is moving into its next, slightly uncertain, stage in its life course. Until now a critical appraisal of its cultural legacy has remained absent. Attending to this omission, this article interrogates it at the levels of ontology, epistemology and representation. By critically analysing its conceptual coherence, the surrounding knowledge claims and how it has been narratively represented, this article develops an appraisal of how this concept has developed in academic, policy and media domains and the associated implications.

To lay theoretical groundwork for this critical examination, it is useful to identify how the emergence of County Lines as a ‘newsy’ topic (Wacquant, 2008) and area of policy concern has been interpreted. Two opposing criminological positions based on certain theoretical and normative commitments are worthy of specific examination. One of these positions is based on high levels of scepticism of the concept, often considering it the latest addition to the long line of moral panics (e.g. Koch et al., 2024). Through such interpretation there is concern about providing undue attention to the issue and a suggestion that the term should be avoided or dismissed. Engaging with the concept of County Lines and surrounding discourses provides legitimation it does not deserve. Doing so also risks colluding with those who are mobilising it in problematic ways (see Koch, 2024; Wroe, 2023). Sitting diametrically opposed, a second response has been to embrace the concept and reify the official discourses surrounding it. Following a wider trend in drug market scholarship (see Coomber, 2024), this has often included an uncritical acceptance and reproduction of the stark warnings from the police and others of it being an urgent issue of significant concern (e.g. Gray, 2023). Far from shying away from it, through this interpretation, County Lines has been deemed ripe for pursuing a range of work, with academic research, policy initiatives and practitioner interventions all burgeoning over recent years. Often coalescing and reinforcing one another, these workstreams have sought to position themselves directly under the bright spotlight shone on this area (see e.g. Hargreaves et al., 2023; McNamara, 2024). They have also sought to amplify it, providing support for the official discursive framing and how County Lines has been dominantly understood.

These two criminological positions are familiar and perhaps represent a continuation of ‘schizoid’ criminology (Zedner, 2002). Yet both are limited in analytic capacity. While ostensibly sitting in opposition, they arguably represent two sides of the same ahistoric coin. What can be labelled the ‘dismissive-constructionist’ account gives little consideration to the possibility of genuine drug supply evolutions that may have occurred, or the link between this and structural shifts in society. Instead, the constructed problem of County Lines is understood almost conspiratorially as another insidious mechanism of social control deployed by the state to further target the marginalised and bolster oppressive policing (e.g. Koch et al., 2024; Wroe, 2023). What can be labelled as the ‘naive embracing’ account gives little critical consideration to the concept itself or how this ‘new’ phenomenon can be understood in relation to the vast body of drug market research that came before (see Coomber, 2024). It overlooks vital lessons from critical criminology regarding how crime phenomena can be deployed problematically by ‘social control entrepreneurs’ (Cohen, 1985) or the unintended consequences of attempting to eliminate it (Young, 1971). Instead, the ‘problem’ of County Lines is taken at face value, with activities such as awareness raising and crackdowns axiomatically considered worthy of championing.

In between these two criminological positions lies something of a vacuum. Required to fill it is an account of County Lines that is critical of it as a concept and how it is deployed, yet realist in orientation about the nature of the phenomenon under focus. This article attempts to contribute towards such an account and transcend the limitations of some current discussions. It starts from the position that much drug market activity referred to as ‘County Lines’ can be considered ‘real’ in so far that it exists independently of the policy discourses associated with it, the practical measures put in place to respond to it and the research methods used to study it (see Stevens, 2020). Some core features exist and must be taken seriously: city based heroin and crack cocaine supply networks servicing retail markets in provincial areas operate widely across the United Kingdom (Coomber and Moyle, 2018); young people are regularly involved in and exploited as part of these operations (Marshall, 2024); and vulnerable local people regularly have their homes ‘cuckooed’ by these drug supply networks (Spicer, 2024). Yet it is also clear that what is often presented as the ‘reality’ of County Lines is based on shaky foundations. It has been produced as a ‘problem’ in unclear, inconsistent and sometimes unhelpful ways (Densley et al., 2023; Spicer, 2021a). It therefore necessitates critical scrutiny. A realist, yet critical position allows for a deeper theoretical examination of what the implications of this have been on matters including cultural legacy and policy influence, as well as what this may mean for the future.

By adopting this theoretical position, it is perhaps appropriate to broadly situate this analysis as a form of what Matthews (2014) has described as ‘cultural realism’. It also represents a development of my own thinking and understanding on this area. Following previous work where I have drawn on concepts such as ‘amplification spirals’ (Spicer, 2021b) and ‘scapegoating’ (Spicer, 2021c), I continue to take inspiration from cultural criminology’s analytic emphasis on meaning, interpretation and reaction (Ferrell et al., 2015). This approach allows for representations to be deconstructed and knowledge claims to be destabilised. However, I am wary of the ontological traps presented by ‘radical constructionism’ (Stevens, 2020). To avoid this, the analysis adopts a critical realist position. This approach, among many other things, stresses the importance of producing sophisticated analysis of social phenomena that provide deeper accounts of an antecedent reality, being both ‘critical of the social practices it studies as well as of other theories’ (Sayer, 2000: 18). Knowledge is understood as contingent, context-dependent and theory laden, yet through ‘judgemental rationality’ it is possible to adjudicate between different accounts and knowledge claims that may be more superior than others. At the same time, close attention can remain on how cultural meaning, interpretation and reaction can shape real behaviour, responses and action (Young, 2011).

This theoretical approach is deployed in this article through three areas of critical enquiry. The first section considers the ontological status of County Lines and its status as a ‘chaotic concept’ (Sayer, 1992). It argues that County Lines has been rendered conceptually thin and ill-defined, often unable to cope with the diverse meanings imposed on it. The second section focuses on the epistemic features of the County Lines concept and the nature of the knowledge claims about it. The concept of ‘hyper-chronocentrism’ is proposed as a way of arguing that Rock’s (2005) critique of criminology as being in a constant disciplinary search for the ‘new’ appears to have become turbocharged in the case of County Lines, with its position on the agendas of a frenetic late-modern knowledge economy generating a relentless search for discovering ‘new’ developments. The third section considers the field of representation and draws on the concept of the ‘cautionary tale’ (Moore, 2009). Rather than falling back by default onto the well-worn notion of ‘moral panic’, it argues that features of blame, risk and victimisation embedded in the narratives constructed around County Lines are better understood through this alternative framework. Bringing these three areas together, some concluding thoughts about the implications of this analysis are provided.

County Lines as a chaotic concept

Abstractions are necessary to make sense of the social world. Some, however, are better than others at fulfilling this task. Concepts that are developed carefully benefit from precision, clarity and depth. Those that are not can be thin and inconsistent, sometimes obscuring more than they reveal. Sayer (1992) has traced critiques of so-called ‘chaotic concepts’ as far back as Marx’s Grundrisse. Emphasising the central status of concepts and process of conceptualisation, critical realists have continued to stress the importance of avoiding those that are ‘loose and sloppy’ (Matthews, 2014: 31). There are numerous examples of concepts that have faced the charge of being ‘chaotic’. White et al.’s (2019) critique of Adverse Childhood Experiences, for example, suggested its lack of conceptual cohesion makes it unreliable and unhelpful. They also usefully define chaotic concepts as ‘abstractions that conflate different issues, or divide up indivisible processes, leading to problems in their explanatory weight and hence in developing policy and interventions on their basis’ (White et al., 2019: 457). Applied to the context of County Lines, there are reasons to believe that the concept shows significant signs of ‘chaos’.

At one level this conceptual chaos is illustrated by the diverse meanings underpinning the use of the term ‘County Lines’. A number of capacious definitions have been proposed and developed over the years. The NCA’s (2015: 2) original report stated that ‘a “county line” describes a situation where an individual, or more frequently a group, establishes and operates a telephone number in an area outside of their normal locality in order to sell drugs directly to users at street level. This generally involves a group from an urban area expanding their operations by crossing one or more police force boundaries to more rural areas, setting up a secure base and using runners to conduct day to day dealing’. Demonstrating some subtle changes and areas of emphasis regarding who is involved and why, as well as a caveat on the nature of mobility, the same organisation more recently states that ‘County Lines is where illegal drugs are transported from one area to another, often across police and local authority boundaries (although not exclusively), usually by children or vulnerable people who are coerced into it by gangs. The “County Line” is the mobile phone line used to take the orders of drugs’. (NCA, 2025).

Following these and similar definitional attempts (e.g. Home Office, 2018), there are at least three different yet substantial reference points regularly used within the ‘crime talk’ (Garland and Sparks, 2000) surrounding County Lines. One of these, often employed by the police, centres on the phones used to facilitate drug dealing. Here, a ‘County Line’ refers specifically to the phone ‘line’ that a drug supply network uses to connect with local buyers in a foreign locale (see NCA, 2015). Similar to the use of phones in drug supply more broadly (see Søgaard et al., 2019), these lines are usually ‘branded’, can develop a significant customer base and become a valuable commodity (Spicer, 2019). Through this reference point the ‘County’ aspect of the term appears to relate to the use of these phone lines for drug supply in ‘County’ police forces, rather than in the metropolitan hubs where the dealing networks originate from. As Densley et al. (2023: 5) succinctly put it, through this understanding of County Lines the impression is ultimately that ‘the mobile phone is king’.

A second meaning of the term centres on the role of travel and place. Here, ‘County Lines’ refers to the phenomenon of drug dealers working ‘across’ the UK’s geographical borders and moving into different Counties to engage in supply in foreign locales. This, as Coomber and Moyle (2018) observe, can take various forms, ranging from ‘commuting’, ‘holidaying’ and ‘cuckooing’. Some have taken against this terminology as a further example of the Americanisation of the English language. Conservative commentator Peter Hitchens (2018), for example, has sought to point out that British counties have ‘boundaries’ rather than the ‘lines’ that separate US states. Regardless, through this understanding it is precisely the mobility of city gangs and their ‘penetration’ into provincial towns that is the cause of alarm (see Spicer, 2021c). Such ‘matter out of place’ (Douglas, 1966) driven anxieties have wider precedent, such as long-standing fears of Organised Crime moving into new territories (Allum, 2014). Specifically in the case of County Lines, what this terminological reference point ultimately demonstrates is how it is often conceptually referred to and understood specifically in the context of travelling across different areas to sell drugs.

A third substantive use of the term has been to describe how certain drug supply networks are organised and structured. In this sense, the ‘elders’ or ‘top boys’ (Coomber and Moyle, 2018) who sit in the upper echelons of the County Line network ‘manage the line’ (Densley, 2014; Harding, 2020) by organising and dictating the activities below. Those who work ‘downline’ (Densley, 2012) are often young people exploited into enabling the drug supply operation to function through ‘running’ heroin and crack cocaine to provincial areas and supplying to end users (Atkinson-Sheppard, 2025). With money then sent back ‘upline’, those at the top of the retail supply pyramid benefit from this labour through profit making and avoiding police attention (Robinson et al., 2019). It is based on this particular understanding of a hierarchical structure and power imbalance that those such as Heys et al. (2022) describe exploitation as being ‘integral’ to County Lines.

All three areas focused on within these terminological reference points might reasonably be identified as common features of County Lines. But the tendency for the concept to be referred to and understood in these multiple, diverse ways, variously used as a verb, noun and adjective, is hardly the mark of robustness. At its worse, it starts to resemble a ‘floating signifier’, absorbing far more meaning than it emits. Even for those who have spent years studying, discussing and thinking about it, when the term ‘County Lines’ is used it is not always clear exactly what is meant. This conceptual chaos therefore leads to the (re)production of a confused and confusing field. There is even inconsistency as to whether it should be capitalised or not. This creates difficulties for a unified, cohesive body of knowledge (academic or otherwise) to develop around a shared understanding. It generates challenges for policies to be developed that are precise and consistent with what it is they are targeting, as well as what they are setting out to achieve. The inevitable confusion arising from this plurality of meaning also undermines public understanding. This is particularly ironic given the significant efforts and resources that have been placed on awareness raising (see e.g. The Children’s Society, 2023).

These muddy conceptual waters are stirred further when examining the various things that County Lines is regularly conflated with. This is particularly visible through the uneven accentuation of one of its features. As previously mentioned, a common aspect of this form of drug supply generating concern has been the involvement of young people, with the concurrent development of the category of Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) seeking to recognise this as a form of victimisation based on force or coercion (Marshall, 2024). However, rather than recognising CCE as a common feature, it is regularly presented as being what County Lines essentially is. The NSPCC (2023), for example, have stated that ‘County lines is a form of criminal exploitation’. Relatedly, it has been declared that ‘County lines is a form of modern slavery and internal human trafficking’ (Thompson, 2022). While common, it is not essential for young people to be exploited, or even necessarily involved in a functioning County Line network (Densley et al., 2023; Spicer, 2021a). By conflating the two and presenting County Lines as conceptually interchangeable with CCE, this could lead to practical problems such as other features being overlooked (Heys et al., 2022), or a risk that young people who are criminally exploited as part of non-itinerant drug supply networks do not become viewed or afforded ‘victim’ status in the same way. More broadly, as Marshall (2024) has noted, significant barriers remain for some affected young people to be meaningfully recognised and treated as victims in County Lines related cases of CCE.

In addition to conflation, the conceptual deficiencies of County Lines are also illustrated in the tendency for it to be used as a catch-all term for wider illicit activities. The most obvious example is how the term has been erroneously used to refer to drug dealing in general, with reference to the actions of various supply networks regardless of their involvement in the specific drugs of heroin and crack cocaine, or whether they are branching out from urban hubs to service markets in provincial areas (see e.g. ITV News, 2022). Similarly, the term has sometimes been used to describe any form of drug dealing that involves mobile phones, which of course encompasses such a wide variety of supply-related scenarios as to make the concept redundant. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that cases arise where schools are criticised for falsely informing parents that they are sites of ‘County Lines’ activity, based on simple reports of drug dealing (see Daily Echo, 2023 for one such case).

This tendency of conflation and imprecise application highlights how, while located at the level of meaning, this conceptual critique goes beyond semantics. There are practical implications of the conflation, confusion and chaos surrounding County Lines. In particular, the various meanings have influenced some chaotic measures put in place to combat it. The early focus on the role of phones, for example, witnessed a rush to find ways to specifically target this. The introduction of the ‘Drug Dealing Telecommunications Restriction Order’, which provided police forces the power to shut down phones suspected of facilitating drug supply, was heralded as a momentous development. Announcing its introduction, the then Home Secretary Amber Rudd claimed that it ‘demonstrates this Government’s determination to crack down on gangs and sends a very clear message that we will not tolerate this despicable criminal activity’ (GOV.UK, 2017). Similarly, the meaning of County Lines as being about drug suppliers travelling across geographical boundaries led to the establishment of the National County Lines Co-Ordination Centre, with an emphasis on enabling ‘police forces to work together to tackle a crime that crosses regions and demands a multi-agency approach’ (GOV.UK, 2022a). Finally, the meaning of County Lines as exploitation has led to the innovative use of Modern Slavery legislation. This has taken the dual form of convicting senior network members of Modern Slavery offences that go beyond convictions for drug supply and providing a defence for those judged to have been exploited into committing drug supply offences. Notably, all three of these responses have been framed at certain points by various policy entrepreneurs as fundamentally striking at the heart of County Lines.

Somewhat inevitably, these diverse responses have simultaneously produced diverse ways that ‘success’ against County Lines has been claimed. Publicised outcomes of police work in this area have ranged from numbers of arrests made, vulnerable people safeguarded, amounts of drugs seized, drug markets ‘disrupted’ and lines ‘closed’. Which of these measures are more (or less) important, how they interact or what can be considered as a suitable level of success for any or all of them are less clear. Perhaps more importantly, however, closer examination of these various measures of success also raises further complexity and uncertainty about these diverse responses. Much has been made, for example, by politicians about the ‘closing down’ of thousands of County Lines over the last few years (HM Government, 2021). What lies behind these statements, however, is not quite as straight forward as first appears. What the Home Office define as a ‘closure’ comes in two different quite different forms. One type is when the ‘holder’ of a line is arrested and charged, while another is ‘through the deactivation of a phone line/number/SIM associated with the line’ (GOV.UK, 2024). Similarly, while the involvement of young people in County Lines is often framed as a problem of Modern Slavery, convictions under the Modern Slavery Act and/or successful use of the Section 45 defence remain relatively rare. Consistent with its chaotic nature as a concept, behind the claims of ostensible achievements, what constitutes success in tackling the problem of County Lines therefore appears far more uncertain and slippery in reality.

What is more certain is that these diverse responses and obtuse markers of ‘success’ can be politically expedient, opening the door to them being used opportunistically. For example, in former Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s otherwise scathing open letter to police leaders, her one area of praise referred to their ‘brilliant work’ on County Lines (see Home Office, 2022). Littered with references to the vague aim of ‘rolling up’ County Lines, the government’s most recent drug strategy also claimed that the response to it was their ‘flagship’ programme (HM Government, 2021). However, without a clearer sense of how County Lines is being conceptualised or what constitutes success against it, such statements appear superficial. Aligning with what Stevens et al. (2025) refer to as ‘interventionitis’, they also obscure the often-fundamental limitations that these responses have. For example, The Home Office’s own review of the effectiveness of the power to shut down phone lines 5 years after it was introduced found ‘limited evidence that DDTROs cause disruption to county lines activity’ (GOV.UK, 2022b). When faced with the opportunity to claim success, however, this apparent ineffectiveness can be brushed aside. Following in the footsteps of the long history of drug law enforcement, any attempts to ‘crack down’ on this area require little justification or deeper scrutiny as to their ultimate outcomes (Collison, 1995).

Taken together, this critical tracing of the conceptual coherence of County Lines highlights how, despite now being a widely used term, it remains conceptually thin, confused and ill-defined. This generates barriers for meaningful examination of its existence and how best to think about it. Its porous and transposable nature also allows for it to be deployed for certain purposes while being slippery enough to sometimes avoid suitable scrutiny. Starting from an unstable conceptual base, its mis-use and over-use has therefore amplified the chaos. All of this is perhaps not helped by its attachment to several other concepts that have previously argued to have a ‘chaotic’ sense about them, including ‘organised crime’, ‘knife crime’ and ‘gangs’ (see Edwards and Levi, 2008; Hallsworth, 2013; Hobbs, 2013). With that noted it is perhaps instructive to keep in mind Rose’s (1984: 67) argument that chaotic conceptualisations ‘cannot lead us to solutions’. To generate deep, meaningful and effective solutions to the genuine harms associated with County Lines, a deeper, more meaningful and rigorous conceptualisation may be required.

County Lines as hyper-chronocentrism

Having critically analysed the conceptual deficiencies of County Lines, this section considers the nature of some of the knowledge claims that surround the phenomenon. The work of Paul Rock represents a useful point of departure. Rock belongs to the generation of British Criminologists who contributed to the discipline’s remarkable growth in the latter half of the 20th century. While he has charted this progression in various classic textbook contributions (e.g. Downes et al., 2016), a particularly intriguing intervention in his survey of the nature and development of criminology concerned how criminologists engage with the history of their discipline (Rock, 2005). Drawing on a concept originally sketched out by Morson (1996), he characterised criminology as having a tendency of ‘chronocentrism’. This is described as ‘the unsubstantiated, often uninspected, almost certainly untenable but powerful doctrine that what is current must somehow be superior to what went before’ (Rock, 2005: 474). In short, criminologists were charged with being prone to self-imposed amnesia, routinely overlooking (for various reasons) work and insights published more than a decade or two prior to their current projects. This led to the discipline being in a state of perpetual ‘new beginnings’ and its practitioners developing an unhealthy ‘discoverer’s complex’ (see also Lamers et al., 2020).

There have been various attempts to produce criminological work that recognises this critique. The development of ‘historical criminology’ into a coherent subfield is a good example (Churchill et al., 2021). Yet evidence remains that this disciplinary critique remains pertinent. In fact, there may even be an intensified shift in its contemporary manifestation. In a ‘hyper-modern’ landscape shaped by ‘speed’ (Virilio, 1986), the ‘quest for the seemingly distinctive’ (Rock, 2005: 473) appears to have become turbo-charged throughout cultural, political and policy domains, bleeding into academic criminology. This is situated within a wider cultural context where people find themselves bombarded with the ‘latest’ content fed to them through the screens of their various devices. Such content competes within the ‘attention economy’ to provide something novel and original that will capture consumer interest (Williams, 2018). Faced with such conditions, the resulting compulsion people feel to consume this constant stream of new online material is a condition described by Heffernan (2016) as ‘hyperlexia’. By combining such insights on late-modern culture with Rock’s (2005) original thesis, it is possible to propose a new concept of ‘hyper-chronocentrism’. This captures the current condition visible in some criminology of an apparent insatiable epistemic appetite to discover and present ‘new’ insights about ‘new’ criminological phenomena, which loses sight of even the not-so-distant past and the need to remain critically attentive to the reality of supposed ‘new’ developments.

There are numerous examples of how hyper-chronocentrism has manifested in the context of County Lines. As Garland and Sparks (2000) remind us, influencers of ‘crime talk’ stretch far beyond academic criminologists. It has unsurprisingly therefore been possible over recent years to witness various journalists scrambling to generate the ‘definitive’ account of the area, simultaneously contributing to and capitalising on the sense of this being a new phenomenon that has gripped the murky underbelly of society. Farrell (2020), for example, set out to provide the ‘inside story’ of what his book’s subtitle refers to as ‘the new breed of exploitation plaguing the streets of a town near you’. In doing so he connects County Lines to various other social concerns. This has parallels with arguments that identified the emergence of the ‘armed youth gang’ as the ‘new’ face of crime that lay at the heart of many social problems in the previous decade (e.g. Pitts, 2008). In similar fashion, Farrell (2020) attempts to weave together multiple, diverse threads, presenting County Lines as being the new causal root behind a host of contemporary fears:

It is flooding through our rivers, pumping in the veins of addicts, and cutting through the social fabric of the UK. ‘County lines’ drug dealing has already arrived in a town near you. It brings with it a wave of gang culture, addiction, knife crime, heartache and the trafficking and murder of children. (Farrell, 2020: 11)

Of course, the journalistic desire for a ‘criminological scoop’ and tendency to cast old crime problems as having ‘new’ causes has significant precedent (Chibnall, 1977; Hall et al., 1978). Perhaps more uniquely strengthening the case for the epistemic state of County Lines to be understood as hyper-chronocentrism has been the drive by some academics and policy-relevant organisations to find new ‘developments in’ and ‘forms of’ County Lines. In numerous publications there has been a rush to discover ‘new’ features of this form of drug supply. One prominent theme has been the cohorts of those affected, with a search to find other exploited groups, rather than just young people travelling from deprived inner city hubs to provincial locales. One example is the identified ‘development’ of local young people now also being exploited by these out-of-town supply networks who develop a presence in their area, with Pitts (2020) seeking to coin this as ‘County Lines Mark II’. Elsewhere there have been claims that, following in the footsteps of Mexican Drug Cartel’s use of ‘a-typical offenders’, young people from affluent, stable backgrounds ‘are becoming the main targets of County Lines abuse’ (Burt et al., 2024), Some similar suggestions have also been made about university students (Hall et al., 2022; London Higher, 2023).

Leaving the veracity of these apparent developments to one side for the moment, noteworthy about the presentation of all these claims is how they fundamentally represent a search for the ‘new’. What marked the initial ‘discovery’ of County Lines as particularly important and shocking was the age of many involved. While there have been attempts to identify increasingly younger people being embroiled in this subterranean world, there is inevitably only so far this can go. Instead of age, the search has therefore commenced for a new or additional variable, with this paving the way for the next notable ‘discovery’ of who is the victim of County Lines exploitation. In turn, this reinforces some of the broader ‘gang talk’ discourses surrounding the phenomenon (see Spicer, 2021c) with the targeting of these new, additional populations portrayed as purposeful, strategic developments consistent with ruthless ‘gang’ activity. Similarly, the claims of an increasingly ‘wider pool’ (Pitts, 2020) of those at risk inevitably adds to a wider sense of fear and anxiety.

Hyper-chronocentrism in knowledge claims made about County Lines is also visible in how the phenomenon has become attached to other contemporary social events and phenomena. With its emergence on the cultural landscape overlapping with the arrival of COVID-19, calls were made by academics not to forget about it as ‘that other epidemic’ (Pitts, 2020). This was then accompanied by a raft of speculation about what influence lockdown measures would have on this drug supply methodology (Brewster et al., 2023; Saggers, 2020). Similarly, various developments in the process of ‘grooming’ young people have been identified, ranging from the sophisticated use of technology (Crest Advisory, 2022), social media (NYA, 2021) and online gaming (Catch 22, 2023), to plying them with vapes and sweets (ROCU, 2024). A wider creep of the apparent presence of County Lines into other criminological settings has also increasingly occurred. Gray (2023), for example, has made claims about the ‘growing’ presence of County Lines in prisons. As Gooch and Treadwell (2025) have recently argued, however, this recent ‘seductive’ trend of labelling drug supply in prisons as ‘County Lines’ lacks conceptual precision or empirical credibility. While someone may well engage in prison drug market activity after being sentenced for County Lines related supply offences, this does not mean that County Lines is therefore ‘present’ in the prison estate.

Rather than being about who experiences exploitation as part of County Lines, these additional ‘new developments’ therefore focus on its machinations as a drug supply methodology. Notably again, the nature of how these have been both ‘discovered’ and presented demonstrate an epistemic search for the ‘new’. It is no longer possible to present the basic premise of County Lines as novel. While the concept remains ‘chaotic’, it has now been discussed widely for a number of years, with its common features extensively reported on by the media, discussed in policy circles and known about among the wider public. What these supposed developments instead provide is an avenue for discovering the ‘next’ and ‘latest’ evolution of this drug supply phenomenon. It is these that then become attention worthy.

In attempting to explain this hyper-chronocentric epistemic condition surrounding County Lines, some insights can be drawn from previous criminological observations. Regarding the academic work that has contributed to it, there are parallels with Hallsworth and Young’s (2008) critique of researchers going out in the field with pre-conceived ideas of what a ‘gang’ is and unsurprisingly finding evidence conforming to their ‘gang gaze’. In the case of County Lines, it is similarly unsurprising that ‘potential new developments’ are ‘uncovered’, if researchers embark on the practice of specifically going out to ‘discover’ them (see, for example, Hall et al.’s, 2022 FOI based study). This is exacerbated by the apparent methodological tendency within interview-based research to report back what various practitioners (e.g. police officers, social workers) say about County Lines as ‘fact’, rather than follow Coomber’s (2024) advice of treating such accounts critically as interpretation, representation and expectation . Such conflation of knowledge claims with reality (see Sayer, 2000) is also not helped given that, as outlined in the previous section, these claims are based on a concept that is regularly ill-defined and misunderstood. Rather than being the ‘discoverers’ of a reality, researchers therefore instead risk becoming closer to the creators of the phenomenon they purport to have uncovered. This can lead to situations where commissioned reports containing over 30 recommendations are published about how to address County Lines on University campuses, despite scant evidence to actually suggest it exists (see London Higher, 2023) or where a separate research team commissioned by the Home Office, having ‘revealed no evidence of County Lines gangs/groups openly operating on campus’ (Burt et al., 2024: 789) during an initial study, nonetheless deemed it necessary to conduct follow up research to investigate ‘how susceptible university students are to engaging in activity that could lead to County Lines involvement’ (Burt et al., 2024: 785). In both cases, the lack of evidence about whether it meaningfully exists as a problem in this ‘new’ context appears to provide little barrier to pursuing work on the basis that it does.

According to Matthews (2014: 153), ‘nothing excites criminologists as much as the arrival of a new catchphrase or slogan’. This appears to hold true. However, aligning with a wider late-modern culture saturated by ‘sequels’, ‘remakes’ and ‘reboots’ (Fisher, 2014), how criminologists engage with the ‘new’ has seemingly shifted. In addition to identifying the latest criminological phenomenon, considerable effort is devoted to discovering their most recent developments. This is particularly visible in the case of County Lines. The phenomenon’s epistemic roots lie in its ‘newness’, with this fundamental to its original emergence and framing as a criminological problem. Its relationship with the ‘new’ continues to be central to its cultural and conceptual growth, with an emphasis on how it continues to change, grow and develop favoured over any sense of continuity. There are of course justifiable reasons for staying attentive to evolutions and their implications. Drug markets are often highly adaptable (Curtis and Wendel, 2007). Appropriately pitched correctives on areas that might have received limited attention are also useful in this field (e.g. Havard et al.’s, 2023 discussion on the role of women and girls in County Lines). However, there are various pitfalls to avoid too. On a practical level the frequent claims of multiple new potential developments based on often flimsy evidence may undermine the need for suitable attention and responses for when they do occur. At an analytic level, there is scope for ‘newness’ to be scrutinised more holistically and critically, including what the implications of presenting something as ‘new’ might be.

County Lines as a cautionary tale

Having critically analysed County Lines conceptually and on the terrain of epistemology, this section now considers its cultural representation and narrative structure as a ‘crime story’. Of course, whenever a crime-related phenomenon becomes the focus of intense political and media attention, suspicions of a ‘moral panic’ are rarely far away. Cohen’s (1972) classic thesis continues to hold weight and be applied liberally across the criminological landscape. In the case of County Lines, there are reasons to believe a suspicion of it constituting a moral panic might hold some weight. Various related concepts have been applied to it. Koch (2024), for example, has argued that County Lines and its association with Modern Slavery legislation is creating a new racialised ‘folk devil’ in the form of black enslavers (see also Koch et al., 2024). There has also arguably been ‘scapegoating’ of certain groups deemed responsible for its emergence (Spicer, 2021c), as well as an ‘amplification spiral’ surrounding the crack down on cuckooing (Spicer, 2021b). Continuing to draw on moral panic inspired threads may produce further critical insight into the cultural representations of County Lines, especially if an emaciated moral panic framework is avoided which treats the area reductively as being a ‘mere’ fictitious construction. But there may be greater theoretical benefits of looking elsewhere. Instead of falling back onto this model by default or forcing it onto this area, other analytic frameworks may provide a better fit for understanding the representation of this criminological phenomenon and the narratives constructed around it.

One such suitable alternative framework is that of the ‘cautionary tale’. This was originally proposed to understand the cultural construction of drug-facilitated sexual assault (Moore, 2009). While recognising that it shared some similar characteristics to a moral panic, the nature of this crime story was seen to differ in several important ways. Moore (2009) identified that there was not an overwhelming media focus on a ‘folk devil’ offender. Attention was instead placed more on the (potential) victim. Relatedly, it was the (potential) victim’s conduct that typically came under scrutiny rather than the offender’s, with them being urged to take responsibility to self-regulate their behaviour and take suitable precautions in the face of this threat. Several other important contrasts between these two frameworks are also visible. For example, while the metaphor of the ‘epidemic’ is used widely in both moral panics and cautionary tales, the narrative formula for the latter is based more on rumour. Media coverage is therefore often ‘long-lasting and culturally embedded’ (Moore, 2009: 317) rather than taking the form of an intense yet short-lived eruption.

Analysing the narrative structure of how County Lines has been culturally represented points to a range of features that arguably appear to fit more closely with a ‘cautionary tale’ rather than ‘moral panic’. The prolonged, now decade-long focus on the area is one indicator. This shows little sign of abating, with the process of hyper-chronocentrism discussed in the previous section helping it continue to roll on and develop, rather than fading from sight and mind. Importantly, County Lines is also now firmly culturally embedded. This is demonstrated by, for example, being the subject of a titular feature-length film, its role as a plot point in various TV ‘soap operas’ such as Hollyoaks, and the release of comic books revolving around it as a subject (e.g. Gabbitas, 2020). In fact, it is precisely this more ‘informal’ media attention, that is characteristic of a ‘cautionary tale’ (Moore, 2009). Instead of solely relying on more ‘official’ sources of news delivered in ‘official’ tones, this more eclectic mix of coverage and associated narratives can sustain the ‘slow-burn’ of the story over time.

Analysing the nature of this coverage and how it represents County Lines as a crime story further suggests the usefulness of conceptualising it as a ‘cautionary tale’. Much media attention and awareness raising initiatives have focused on the risk faced by young people of becoming exploited as part of this form of drug supply, with corresponding prescriptions on the behaviour they should adopt and the precautions they should make. The ‘Don’t Take the Bait’ campaign launched by the British Transport Police in 2023 is a good example. Targeted at young people, campaign posters state that ‘Drug Gangs Offer Cash’ or ‘Drug Gangs Offer Gifts’, alongside images of hooks placed in consumer items such as trainers. This then leads to the ultimate directive within these materials of ‘Don’t Take The Bait’ (see BTP, 2024). While the presence and actions of the offenders are lurking in the background of this campaign, it is the (potential) victim and their behaviour that take centre stage. Rather than the traditional moral panic concern on prior events, this future-facing orientation therefore stresses the need for young people to take responsibility not to become criminally exploited via self-regulation.

In addition to young people, parents regularly feature and play important roles in the County Lines cautionary tale. Sometimes this can involve them being a direct part of the narrative and reproducing the precautionary message. The parents of Joe Dix, for example, who had reportedly been murdered after being involved in County Lines drug supply, were asked by the media what their message was to other young people who might be considering engaging in such activity. Their cautionary advice was that they should:

Stay at home and watch TV with your parents or paint your little sister’s toenails. Enjoy life. (BBC, 2024a).

Relatedly, parents can also represent the intended audiences of the cautionary tale-oriented media coverage. Sometimes this can focus on a perceived lack of knowledge and awareness about the very notion of what County Lines is. The Modern Slavery Charity, Unseen, for example, publicised commissioned research which suggested that a third of parents did not know what County Lines is (Unseen, 2022). The lack of conceptual clarity and the role this might have played in these findings were not, however, recognised. Another campaign by the same organisation entitled #Likestolines focused on the online risks faced by young people, with the ‘don’t let their likes turn into exploitation’ slogan stressing the precautions parents should be taking to protect them (Unseen, 2024).

Taken further still, sometimes parents can be even more directly targeted as the intended audience of the cautionary tales constructed around County Lines. At a vigil immediately following the fatal stabbings of two Bristol teenagers, the media widely publicised the speech of a local knife crime campaigner, Leanne Reynolds, who sought to stress to parents the need for them to be vigilant against their children being exploited into drug supply. She instructed:

Go home, search your children’s room (. .) Don’t let them walk in with new clothes, new trainers, you don’t know where they are coming from, they are being groomed (BBC, 2024b).

It soon transpired that the violence in this tragic case had nothing to do with drug supply or exploitation. The two young innocent victims had not been ‘groomed’ into County Lines or any other form of drug market activity. They were instead targeted in a case of mis-identity. But, importantly, what the presence of this narrative response to this case demonstrates is the cultural embeddedness of ‘County Lines’ as a cautionary tale, something further amplified by media reporting. This in turn shines further light on the cultural legacy that has developed around the phenomenon and the real effects of this discourse.

Rather than conforming to the classic moral panic model, the way concepts such as risk are mobilised both implicitly and explicitly within the stories told about County Lines therefore suggest something slightly different is occurring. Across media coverage, campaigns and initiatives, the narrative structure regularly constructed around County Lines as a crime story still represents a form of moral regulation but falls closer to that of a cautionary tale. It is the ‘wrong’ decisions by young people or the negligence of their parents that are regularly presented as central contributors to them becoming exploited into drug supply. Feeding off a socio-cultural context laden with messages of risk and mitigation (Beck, 1992), ‘responsiblising’ those deemed vulnerable becomes emphasised alongside a preoccupation with future threats. This then helps to explain its longevity as a crime story, places an emphasis on what the real effects of this discourse are and provides an indication of where it might go in the future.

Conclusion

Attempting to transcend some of the criminological responses to the emergence of the County Lines phenomenon during its first decade of cultural life, this article has sought to critically interrogate it at the levels of ontology, epistemology and representation. It has challenged some existing accounts and proposed critiques, adjustments and competing alternatives. Much of the analytical inspiration for this derives from cultural criminology. This approach is commonly critiqued as lacking in practical application or policy relevance. In this case, however, the critical realist concept of ‘practical adequacy’ can be used as a defence (Sayer, 2000). Many existing accounts of County Lines arguably lack practical adequacy. Its chaotic conceptualisation means they rest on flimsy foundations. The search for the ‘new’ that preoccupies much of the research agenda around it leaves some deeper questions unraised and produces little ‘epistemic gain’ (Stones, 1996). The temptation to fall back onto a thin moral panic framework also risks that cultural representations of risk and responsibility are unsatisfactorily theorised and explained. Alternative, critical accounts that destabilise these, challenge what is taken for granted and promote new ways of thinking are required and hold better promise. By resisting the temptation to either dismiss or uncritically accept it, such accounts are also more likely to contribute towards achieving worthwhile policy goals (see Stevens, 2020). With that in mind, several concluding points can be made from the three areas of analysis developed in this article.

First, if a central lesson from moral panic analysis is to avoid counterproductive amplification spirals (e.g. Young, 1971), it is worth considering what can be learnt from identifying County Lines as a ‘cautionary tale’. Applied in other contexts, Moore (2009) has highlighted the potential of this narrative structure, once culturally embedded, to curtail freedoms of certain groups and perpetuate forms of victim blaming. It may therefore be worth being wary of imposing unnecessary restrictions on those who are unlikely to be exposed to exploitation or inappropriately ‘responsibilising’ those who are (Windle et al., 2020). More broadly, it remains important to be attentive to what is omitted in this narrative structure, including, for example, the role of inequality (Spicer, 2021c), and how this influences the continued responses to it as a criminological problem.

Second, while a significant body of literature on the topic containing various insightful contributions now exists, there remains scope for significant epistemic development. Rather than contributing to a state of ‘hyper-chronocentrism’, an emphasis on critically orientated, theoretically informed analyses could provide deeper, more meaningful and enduring insights. Following critical realist principles, this could, for example, involve simultaneously capturing the valuable insights of practitioners and policy makers, while remaining critical of some of the claims made and what is said more generally (Sayer, 1992). There may also be value in researchers on this topic (myself included) reflecting on their own intellectual journeys in this field and how their positions may develop or change in relation to the phenomenon over time.

Finally, ongoing critical analysis on the use of the very concept itself should be encouraged. In the case of ‘mugging Hall et al. (1978) attempted a thorough dismantling of the term and proposed that it be purged from public discourse. This was unsuccessful and despite its chaotic nature there appears little reason to believe that this would be any different if proposed for ‘County Lines’. From a realist perspective, promoting precision and challenging erroneous use may be a more effective alternative. Inspiration for this type of work can be taken from other criminological domains where such a critical yet constructive position has been pursued (e.g. Hobbs, 2013 on the concept of ‘Organised Crime’). Coomber et al.’s (2025) recent report provides a good example, highlighting the capacity of the police and others to bend the definition of County Lines to fit evolving priorities and apply the concept creatively to leverage resources. Such work provides grounded, practical insights, while shining critical light on the wider link between its abstract conceptualisation and relationship to practice. Pursuing a ‘cultural realist’ agenda in the field of County Lines may help lay better foundations for understanding how the phenomenon develops over the next decade and help attend more effectively to some of the very real harms of drug supply. The critical lessons we can take from analysing the cultural life of this particular criminological phenomena may also help us make better sense of others that are inevitably coming around the corner.