Home Office publishes evaluation of the County Lines Programme

The Home Office has published an evaluation of the County Lines Programme.

The report evaluates the County Lines (CL) Programme's impact on various aspects of crime, including serious violence and acquisitive crime, law enforcement activities, safeguarding referrals, drug misuse hospitalisations, and County Lines Programme metrics.

Using a difference-in-differences methodology, the analysis compares changes in outcomes between areas affected by the Programme and those unaffected, before and after its implementation.

The evidence suggests that, following the implementation of the County Lines Programme, in exporter forces:

The CL Programme led to a decrease in serious violence measured as any weapon use hospitalisations (sharp weapons and firearms)^{[footnote 1]},^{[footnote 2]}

Results show a 21.6% decrease or, on average, 33 fewer quarterly cases of hospitalisations for weapon use as a direct implication of the CL Programme. This decrease is driven by a significant decline of 18.9% in sharp weapon hospitalisations. The reduction in weapon use hospitalisations was seen immediately after the start of the Programme.

Additionally, the coefficients for the effects of the CL Programme on drug related homicides and lethal barrel discharges are also negative, yet the effects are not statistically significant. The lack of statistical significance of the effects is primarily due to the low precision of the estimates, which is expected for these measures given the low volumes and volatility of the data.

There has been a 19% increase in police-recorded violence after CL Programme implementation. Improved police recording practices and heightened police presence in the exporter areas may have contributed to this as part of the CL Programme deployment. These channels require further exploration.

In absolute value, there were, on average, 3,650 more quarterly police-recorded violent crimes in the exporter areas after implementing the CL Programme. This effect is statistically significant and, therefore, attributable to the CL Programme. These results are driven by increases in incidents recorded as violence with injury and violent disorders. In terms of dynamics, the effects are increasing over time, taking close to one year to materialise.

On this matter, it should be noted that (1) improved police recording practices largely driving increases in recorded violent crime^{[footnote 3]}, and (2) increases in and heightened police presence could be also taking place in exporter forces as a result of the CL Programme with a focus on violent crime.

Negative changes in acquisitive crime were not statistically significant and therefore not attributable to the CL Programme, with the exception of theft from vehicles.

Whilst the overall impact on acquisitive crime was not statistically significant, there was a significant decline in theft from vehicles by 15.4% (or 985 per average quarter) observed in exporter areas, with this being directly attributable to the Programme.

There has been a 25.1% increase in the number of law enforcement activities due to the CL Programme, mostly measured through an increase in police recorded drug possession offences.

This is equivalent of 1,077 more quarterly offences for drug possession and drug trafficking, on average, which can be interpreted as better targeting and more successful law enforcement activities following the launch of the CL Programme.

Positive changes in NRM safeguarding referrals were not statistically significant and therefore not attributable to the CL Programme. The volatile pattern in safeguarding referral data following the launch of the CL Programme makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions about its impact.

As additional data is gathered on the CL Programme, particularly around safeguarding referrals, the volatile patterns are likely to stabilise, which will in turn allow for a more accurate estimate of the impact of the CL Programme

The CL Programme has resulted in a 14.4% decrease in drug misuse hospitalisations (or 40 fewer quarterly drug misuse hospitalisation cases on average).

The dynamic effects indicate that the effect is immediate, that it persists and is even more pronounced over time.

As expected, there has been a statistically significant effect on the total number of lines closed and on individuals arrested and charged.

While the impact on closures seems to consistently increase over time, for arrests and charges, the trend flattens around 18 months post-policy implementation. This could be due to data coverage, and further analysis of this dimension could be crucial in the future.

In the ‘top' importer forces:

Overall, the effect on top importer areas due to implementing the CL Programme in the exporter areas was relatively minimal. Hence, it can be concluded that the effect of the Programme is likely to be rather localised to the exporter areas.

Estimates across the various outcomes are not statistically significant, indicating that the CL Programme activity and funding did not directly impact these ‘top' importer areas for such crime categories. However, the signs of the estimates are in line with what we would expect and there is a sizable decrease in acquisitive crime following Programme implementation, with a statistically significant reduction in theft of vehicles which can likely be attributed to the CL Programme.

Evaluation of the County Lines Programme

HTML

Evaluation of the County Lines Programme (updated) (January 2020 to January 2025)

HTML