Earlier this month, police, customs and more agencies saw the outcome of a major investigation that traced almost £2 million of drugs imported to the island, using children as young as 12 as a conduit.
Earlier this month, four young adults were sentenced to jail terms between two and three years for various drugs offences. They had coerced the children into receiving thousands of pounds’ worth of drugs at their homes, promising vapes and expensive clothes and threatening violence if a parcel was intercepted by Customs and Immigration.
The syndicate was foiled by a set of joint operations, bringing together police, Customs and Immigration, the Youth Service and more agencies.
Though the children and teenagers involved weren’t typical young offenders, the island maintains a “wicked problem” with a small group who are responsible for around 10% of the island’s crime, according to Police Chief Robin Smith.
“Regrettably, every year of since my appointment, which is, you know now over five years, young people crime, particularly in the spring and summer months, increases,” he said.
“It may surprise you to know that young people commit about 10% of our total crime in Jersey, which is, you know, and it’s really a very, very small number of children, so largely speaking, around 10 at any given time, would commit about 10% [of crime in the island].
“That’s, I think, a remarkable number.”
Some of them are as young as 11 or 12, he added.
Police-led operations in recent years – Operation Porter, Operation Optical, Operation Stride – have been set up to tackle rising youth crime.
This is at its worst during the spring and summer, he said.
“We set those operations up, much to my frustration, frankly, because we have to do it, because there are too many victims of crime, and often those victims of crime are young people as well.”
He added: “The real story for me, excepting that we’ve got young people who are being exploited, is how the island collaborates.”
Operation Stride led to the creation of Operation Java, and in turn, officers untangled a net of drug traffickers with at the top, the Birmingham-based Mohammad Babrul Hussain. Hussain was jailed for seven and a half years after pleading guilty at the first opportunity, “which should indicate to you that the evidence against him was very, very good”, Mr Smith explained.
In total, the ring imported around £1.8 million of drugs, the investigation found.
Mr Smith stressed that it was a “very, very small number” of children who get in trouble. He praised the Parish Hall Enquiry system, which most of them go through instead of the courts.
“It means that at the first trip, we don’t criminalise people, which then can cause issues as they go further on in their lives.
“As a person who’s spent nearly 40 years catching criminals, I don’t want that at all, particularly for our young people here in Jersey.”
He added: “The last thing a police officer wants to do, including me, is to be arresting and criminalising young people. We do not want that.”
But with youth crime making up a disproportional amount of crime in the island, what initiatives could help?
A Youth Justice Roadmap is due to be published “imminently” by Justice and Home Affairs Minister Mary Le Hegarat, after a few months’ delay.
Mr Smith said he was “really, really encouraged” by it, adding: “I think what too often policing does and other agencies do, is we deal with the symptoms too often, not the causes.
“We’ll constantly go to a particular person who is committing crime. We are dealing with the symptom.
“If there’s an addiction issue, if there’s a housing issue, often there is an addiction issue or an alcohol issue, we should be trying to tackle that.
“Otherwise we’re just going to have repeat incident after repeat incident.”
Initiatives in other jurisdictions include the UK’s “Troubled Families” programme, now known as “Supporting Families”.
In a previous role, “that worked very effectively”, and a Jersey version would have to include agencies ranging from community policing teams to charities like Brighter Futures.
“I was always impressed with Troubled Families, and I think that there’s an opportunity there for us here in Jersey, because let’s face it, it is a relatively affluent community. There is real poverty here, I’ve seen that too, but I think we could help and identify those families.”
The work should focus on families and generational issues, he added.
“Like most of us, we grew up in a nice, caring family, but often these poor children have not strted off in that way, and that is generational. So we’ve often talked here in the island about getting upstream, finding better ways with families who are going to struggle from the outset.”
A force that is anchored in the community means they can also access “the best intelligence asset we’ve ever had, particularly in Jersey”, he said.
“I’m confident that the relationship between ourselves and the island is a good one – the Jersey Opinions and Lifestyle Survey illustrated the trust that islanders have in the States of Jersey Police.
“But as I’ve often said, trust and confidence arrives on foot, but leaves on horseback. So we are ruthless here about maintaining our trust and confidence in the communities, because that way, islanders will come to us when they see things that they don’t like the look of, and we get a lot a lot of information from Islanders who are concerned about their community.”
In 2022, six children who went missing repeatedly took £800,000 of police resources, and a group of ten youths taking up the equivalent of 33 police officers in a year.
Police and other support services find themselves in an awkward spot when dealing with missing children, who need to be kept safe but who social workers are reluctant to lock into their rooms.
Mr Smith referred to this as “tension between what’s right for young people and children’s rights”.
“That tension is a good one. In terms of police powers, we have enough powers that we need. Of course we do.
“And if we think that a child is vulnerable, we have got very good powers and we will collect that child, whether it’s via a police protection order. So we’ve got the powers we need.
“Whether other agencies have got the power they need is for them to share. They may have similar tensions about what’s right for children and children’s rights and when those two things meet, then I think we’ve got the sweet spot. Sometimes they don’t, and that’s the challenge.
“Sometimes they don’t, and that’s the challenge, but it’s a challenge that we deal with together. It is concerning if we’ve got young people who are reported missing.
“But what Java gives me confidence on and it’s the best illustration of how agencies can come together and work together to keep young people safe and in fact, to keep all islanders safe.”
Operation Java and Stride hadn’t been costed yet, but Mr Smith estimated it would be “tens and tens of thousands of pounds” for police alone.
“But what’s the cost of justice?
“What’s the cost of justice? And more importantly, we looked at safeguarding 43 young people. So yes, I’m delighted that Mr. Hussain finds himself in prison for seven and a half years. He can join the rest of them. And then we’ve got all the others who have got sentenced this week. They’re young people. They were 17 and 18. Now they’re 19 and 20. You know, they are involving themselves in very, very serious crime with very, very serious implications, as well as exploiting dozens of other young people.
“So that should be the appropriate deterrent.
“But safeguarding, particularly safeguarding from the risk of criminal exploitation, is always our number one priority. So it was a very sophisticated operation involving an enormous amount of meetings, as you can imagine, some good police work and detective work, with the wraparound from other agencies.”
