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Beth Cofell, a criminal exploitation specialist, discusses her journey to becoming a researcher and the research she has conducted. She explains her education journey, starting with a hairdressing apprenticeship and then going back to study criminology at university. She talks about her work in a youth justice team and her first experience with research, which focused on the influence of socialization agents on joining gangs. She then explains her recent master's research on road life, where she interviewed young people involved in criminal activities. She discusses the complexity of defining gangs and the term "road," which refers to individuals involved in illegal activities and constantly on alert for violence. She highlights the importance of language in working with these communities and the challenges of using terms like exploitation and victimhood. Welcome to In Conversation, a podcast of the Rudd Centre, University of Cambridge, where we promote world-leading research, training and policy engagement to meet the needs of families and children. I'm Ali, and today I'm joined by Beth Cofell, a criminal exploitation specialist who's recently done her Master's in road life. So Beth, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your route to becoming a researcher and the research that you've conducted? Yes, of course. So I currently work in a youth justice team in the exploitation specialist team, and I've been working with that youth justice team for around five years now. To talk about my education journey, I think it's better to start from the beginning really, which is ages ago now. So when I left school, I completed a hairdressing apprenticeship, and then it was only after like a year of employment in that, that I kind of realised it wasn't for me and just, I think I just got more life experience. And I just kind of realised that I wanted to do something else with my time. So I wanted to go back to uni to study criminology. So I had to go back and sit my A-levels. So I put myself back for my A-levels, and then I studied criminology at undergraduate. And then I was really fortunate that after I, just as I completed my studies, I was able to move into a youth justice team as my first official role. So I was a transition advisor for that team. So that was basically, I helped all the young people who were on court orders that weren't in education, that weren't in some sort of education, training or employment. And it was about, you know, trying to get them back involved. So that was my first kind of career step, I would say, into the youth justice service. And then I also completed my dissertation as part of my undergraduate degree. And this was like my first bit of research that I've ever done. I did secondary research at this point. So I kind of just researched other research. When I look back at it now, I'm horrified at my research, because I use the term gang so much. And it was, yeah, it's definitely not, doesn't fit the scope, I would say now of what I was actually writing about. But at the time, I was interested in whether the key agents of socialisation, like your family, the media, the school, whether they kind of influence anyone's likelihood into joining a gang. But as I said, that's absolutely not, not terms that I would use now. But it was the first kind of taster of research that I did. And I knew from that, I really wanted to go on and do primary research one day. So that's how I kind of ended up doing my master's at Anglia Ruskin. So I recently completed my master's at Anglia Ruskin. And I was able to do my own research using interviews with some of the young people that I work with through my work. So it was really, it was an easy task to have access to them, which I think is not so easy for other people who don't work in that profession, trying to conduct research with young people. So yeah, I kind of found myself in a really good spot for it almost. And yeah, and after I completed my dissertation for my master's is kind of why I'm here now, really, and what really kind of made me want to go on and do more research and things like this, I would say. Right. So you use the term gang. And when I've seen you talk in the past, I've heard you use the term road life. Could you tell the audience a little bit about what those terms mean? Yes. So the term gang, the reason that I have a problem with it essentially, is because there's such a debate in the gang world across the whole world, America, England, there's no universally agreed upon definition of what a gang is to start with. Some people argue that gangs don't exist. They're kind of a social construct created by the media to label people. And then others argue that gangs are changing the face of UK crime. So it's a really difficult and complex area to start with. And the reason that I find it difficult is that gangs, the focus on gangs is a focus on organisation, hierarchy, who's at the top of the gang, who's at the bottom of the gang, what are their roles. When a lot of the young people I work with aren't in a structured gang at all. It's just them and their friends who have shared experiences and they go on to do things together or even on their own, but as friends. So I think it's really difficult to differentiate between what is a peer group who's involved in criminality and what is a gang. And I think it's helpful, gang research is helpful to obviously show us how much the problem is growing in the UK. But I don't think it's very helpful to get bogged down in kind of determining what is a gang or what isn't. I think it's important to understand why young people are engaging in that type of criminality rather than just focusing on labelling them as this group or something. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And could you tell us a bit about the term road? So ultimately, what my research determined someone as being a road man or being on road is, is somebody who lives in an urban geographic area or a town, a city, and they make their money through illegitimate means, more than likely drug dealing, but there are other forms of fraud and robbery and things like that. But most of the young people I work with that are on road, they're making their income through drug dealing. But there's obviously a lot of people in the world who make their income through drug dealing, but they're not on road, if that makes sense, like the really rich, posh people who are involved in drug dealing and things like that. So to differentiate a drug dealer and somebody who's on road is this kind of, not only do you make your money illegally, but you also are always on alert and ready for violence, pretty much. It's a normal part of your life. You're very aware that you have competitors, you can't go to the police, and you have to handle things yourself. So being on road is very much being involved in the drug dealing, but also knowing that you have to handle things yourself. And it's, this is your life, that is your pathway. To them, there's kind of no other way out, if that makes sense. And it can get a bit confusing because I'll go on to talk about something called road culture, which is, is really widespread across the UK. I would say I participate in road culture, the music I listen to, the language I talk, things like that, absolutely doesn't mean I'm on road at all. So, but it just goes to show how far this kind of road mentality has spread across the UK and in the younger generations, even into like clothing labels and things like that. So there is a difference between road culture and being on road. But yeah, ultimately, I, I like to use the term on road because I feel like it resonates with young people, they accept it, and it actually fits what we're looking at. Not every, not every person on road is in a gang. Not every person on road is involved in county lines. Not every person on road is involved in serious youth violence, but they're all a part of road, if that makes sense. Yeah. In terms of these communities, you know, we're talking here about language and terminology. How important was language in gaining the trust of the communities that you've worked with or reaching out to them? Language is absolutely everything when working with these young people. So one of the difficult things is obviously in my role, the word road is not, it's not, it's not accepted and it doesn't exist in terms of on risk assessments. I'm doing risk assessments about child criminal exploitation and things like that. So it's a difficult one because I'm working with terms that I know young people reject. I have to raise their awareness of exploitation and things like that. So I'm very mindful of when I'm having them discussions that I let them know that I understand that it's deeper than you could just simply have been exploited. Yeah. So young people themselves hate the term exploitation. From all the research I've seen, exploitation has been rejected by all of the, what we would say, victims of it for as far back as I can go. I remember that I was reading about a sexual exploitation case years ago where a judge basically said to the victim that yes, you were exploited and you were a victim, but also your need for food and things like that also made you a victim, if that makes sense. Your position, your position of poverty has put you in that position where you need things, if that makes sense. So even in kind of a sexual exploitation, which has obviously talked about that, has been around for a lot longer than criminal exploitation. It was always a kind of rejected concept. So it's a difficult one because to put it simply, I don't really like the term gangs as explained by, I don't really like the term county lines because the county lines definition focuses on gangs moving drugs into another county. None of mine are in gangs and none of the young people I work with move drugs into another county, so they don't fit that scope either. Child criminal exploitation I have a lot more time for. It absolutely happens. Young people are victims. Young people do get threatened and manipulated into selling drugs, but I think it's a difficult one where if the young people don't like to see themselves as victims because it's a very kind of passive, it suggests a lot of things, exploitation and being a victim, it suggests that you're passive, it suggests that you're being forced, yeah you don't have like the independence to make your own decision making. So what I kind of say by using the word road and what I really think helps young people is that you, yes there are cases when people are exploited and forced to, but there also aren't cases where the young people aren't, nobody's making them, nobody's threatening them to do this, but there are other things that exist within their life that are restricting their autonomy on their decision making. For example their situation, so no they may not be manipulated by an older on the streets, but they are manipulated by the system that they live in from being from a working class urban background. Does that make sense? So they're restricted by a lot of other things and they're manipulated by a lot of other things that might make them see drug dealing as their only choice and once you're in it, you're in it. Once you're in it and you get arrested once, that's it, you have a debt. The police have taken your drugs, the police have taken your cash, you automatically have a debt from the minute you're arrested. So it's just so easy to kind of, it's really easy to end up owing people money and being in debt and there are cases where people will go out of their way to force and manipulate young people, but I think the biggest concern is that the other things that are going on in society that manipulate their life choices really. Right, yeah, I mean we're already discussing this, but what do we need to know about the landscape that these young adults and children that you're working with are being engaged with? Yeah, so I think one of the huge things that I learn in my training as trying to become an exploitation specialist was a concept called intersectionality. So this was created in the 1990s, it was for a feminist movement. It was basically identified how a black woman may experience more negative experiences than for example a black man, being that everybody has roles and identities that interact and everybody has roles and identities that they're discriminated by and some people kind of have a double discrimination, if that makes sense. So you have somebody, a black male might be discriminated against because of their race, but then you also have a black woman who might experience further harm from the fact that she, her race and her gender, if that makes sense. So it's looking at how everybody has their own intersecting identities and this is so broad from like class to kind of sexual orientation, all of them sorts of things. So for me, the biggest takeaway from that for me that I implement intersectionality into my work is recognising that every single person has a different story, every single person I work with has been through something and everybody sees the world based on what they've been through. So it's about understanding that these young people have been through things that I probably couldn't even imagine, half of us couldn't even imagine and for me intersectionality really allows you to not judge, I would say, and to kind of look at these young people in a more understanding light really, rather than just seeing them as criminal and savage. You're kind of able to understand that what they've been through and why they might think this is the only option available to them. So what are the impacts of media, particularly I guess social media, upon our understanding of road life? Social media is such a difficult one because I think it's like how we could imagine everything comes with positives, everything comes with negatives. So China, I'm not sure which one, which we get more from, whether we get more positive or more negative from social media, but the media itself has always been a tool to amplify moral panic and to create an outsider culture and put a blame on somebody. So I definitely think, as in the media, as in the news doesn't help in terms of the kind of outsider culture it creates and the fear that it creates, but then I also think social media probably plays even a bigger role, which is crazy. There's absolute benefits of it. You can't ignore the benefits of being able to, I don't know, FaceTime somebody the other side of the country and things like that. But in terms of road life, like it's a really tricky tool. Social media is a forever watching eye really, and there's negative aspects to it in many ways, but one way is the kind of way it can be used to start beef and start arguments and used as a tool to annoy your rivals, shall I say. And once things are out, if somebody disrespects you on social media and everybody sees it, you feel more obligation to get vengeance and not just let that slide because everybody's seen it and you've got an image. If you want to survive on these roads, you've got to carry an image that you can survive. You've got to be ready for violence. You've got to be ready to inflict violence. So you wouldn't just let something on social media slide for sure. And the other thing as well is consumer culture. This is a real area of interest of mine and I think it's really interesting. But like I said, it's the forever being, it's the all-seeing eye of Big Brother. And when I did some of my research, Kanan is the pseudonym for one of the young people who was in my research. He basically said, it's not cool to be broke, even if it's not your fault. And he's so right. It's not cool to be broke. I fall into the trap of it. I care about what shoes I'm wearing. I care about what I put on my social media and things like that. But social media also makes people feel like they have to portray this image. It basically makes 14-year-olds feel like they need to be wearing the best clothes and having the best things when you're 14. You don't have any income right now. You're at school. How are you going to afford it? And your parents might not be able to afford the £170 trainers that you want. That's a lot of money. So yeah, definitely for me, social media can be a great tool. But in terms of young people, it's definitely a concern and one for sure, both for the beef that it causes and the pressure it puts on young people today to look good or get money. Contrasting this potentially negative impact of media, does music provide a platform for more truthful street perspectives to be voiced? Yeah, so it's a really common argument within the UK. People love to suggest that like, drill music is the reason for knife crimes and things like that. And in my dissertation, I actually did it in two parts. So I did, like I said, I did interviews with young people themselves, got their views on like road, the terms, county lines and things like that. And then I analysed music language. I also analysed a song. So this song had the word roads in the title. And I learnt so much from it. If you break down what they're saying and actually listen to it, they're talking about really serious matters. They're talking about poverty. They're talking about racism, deprivation. They're talking about toxic masculinity. They're talking about what I said, consumer culture and things like that. If you listen to it deeper, then there's a lot that can be learned. I try not to get massively caught up in the argument about drill music because I do appreciate it is of an overtly explicit nature sometimes. I can listen to it with my young people in the car and I can think, Jesus, this is a lot. And I listen to it like I'm aware of that music. I'm not really drill, but I listen to rap all the time. I do understand the concern of it. But again, music's been like that forever. Rock music, if you listen to it and listen to the words, is of an overtly explicit nature and things like that. The whole Call of Duty and GTA video games make people violent. There's always been something to blame. There's always been some form of video game or music to blame for young people's engagement in serious youth violence. I just like to look at the positives of it. Obviously, there are negatives. And again, if I want to go back to the rivalries, people can use songs to take the mick out of other people and talk about the things that they've done, et cetera, et cetera. There are negatives of it, but at the bottom line, freedom of speech, music is a form of expression. If we don't like hearing about it, they don't like living it either. That's their reality. That's the life they live. And also another good thing about music is it does create opportunities for young people that they would have never, ever, ever had. There is rappers who have a serious, serious stake in our society. For example, Stormzy is world known. He is funding degrees at Cambridge University. He's got it all going on for him. And what then opportunities have been available for him? If he didn't go into rap music, I do not know. Only he can answer what his views on that would be. So there are opportunities that young people would never get from it. But what I do think I can say about it is that if you do come successful from it, if you are making millions off it, if your platform is being reached and heard by a lot of younger generations, I think you do have a responsibility to ensure that there's a message in your music. I'm not saying don't talk about the reality of what you've done, because a lot of it they're talking about past violent acts and stuff. And yeah, you might need to talk about it, but you also need to, for me anyway, have a message that follows that as to explain that that isn't the life you wanted to take. And it's not always how it looks, if that makes sense. And I also think there's a huge responsibility that is missed by radio stations and labels and things like that, that should be, with all these millions, should be pumping money back into the communities of the young people that listen to and stream all the music and get them all their revenue, really. So yeah, I think it's a powerful tool, can sometimes be a little bit negative, as everything has its pros and cons. But I do think there should be more responsibility from those who are really succeeding to make sure that they're sending positive messages through their music, I would say. So I'll move on now to the needs of the communities and the people that you work with. So what needs of the communities that you encounter potentially aren't being met? And what could be done to change this? So there's a lot of needs that aren't being met. In the UK, working class, urban estates are left behind. Not many opportunities, not many funding. Needs to be more in that area is just kind of a simple blanket answer, I would say. But specifically, the young people I'm working with, and people on road is education. And I don't feel like, not traditional education is not what I think it needs to be either. I don't think going on to do more maths and English after the age of 16 is really going to help my lovely little road men go and create a nice life for themselves. So for me, it's about their school experience. There's so many layers to it. So to put it simply, there is a zero drugs tolerance role in schools. So if you get caught with cannabis, you're out. And you know how many people smoke cannabis nowadays, all of my young people smoke cannabis. So to me, there needs to be a little bit more leniency and understanding on them types of things. Because if you meet a young person, you find them with cannabis and a grinder in their bag, and you then exclude them. It's like, well, wait, now you're at home with nothing to do. So you probably can be on road for a couple of days, you've got more opportunity to be out there on the road if you wanted to. So that in itself is a cycle. Post 16 opportunities, there is none. Everybody talks about apprenticeships. I don't know if people understand the reality of apprenticeships. I did an apprenticeship. The point of apprenticeships is to have training attached to it. So you have to go to college one day a week for most apprenticeships. There might be some where you work most of the time, then you go do a block week of training, for example, like mechanics, if that makes sense. You'd work Monday to Friday, then one week out of the year, you go and do your training somewhere. But most apprenticeships are, you work four days a week, you go to college one day a week. The colleges will not let you in on an apprenticeship unless you have Cs and above, whether the employers ask for that or not. So that's the college in the local authority that I work for anyway, and that's the only college in the local authority. So I can have young people who could want to go do a construction apprenticeship, the employer saying no grades required on the website. But when you'll get into the actual college, they're like, sorry, you need to come and sit maths and English for a year to get it up to C and above. So to put it simply, my young people aren't getting apprenticeships. People on road are not getting apprenticeships. It's a lot more difficult for them too. So to me, there's just not opportunities and a curriculum that suits the young people, really, in terms of education. One thing that I talk about in my dissertation is, as I say, consumer culture. We're a capitalist country. We're a country that is based on neoliberalism and promoting the self. You've got to be out there for yourself. You can go make your own money, which is great. Loads of self-employed, loads of people have got opportunities. But at the same time, we have no opportunities for 16-year-olds to make real money. Like I said, if you can get an apprenticeship, you're wagering at the best anyway. But there's not real opportunities for young people to make money. Years ago, they raised the school-leaving age to 18. What did they do? How did that happen? What does that mean? Who's monitoring that? Who's making sure that young people are staying in college till they're 18? Because there's not, because there's not the opportunities for them to. And nobody's doing anything about it because it's not a properly monitored system, if that makes sense. So they brought in this idea that you're supposed to carry on with some form of education till you're 18. But where? How? What is the reality of that actually happening? So yeah, we're this capitalist country that forgets that social media, we've got 14-year-olds looking on their phone wanting things. They want money. They want trainers. They want this. They want that. But we don't give them an opportunity till they're at least 18. So for me, it's just education and job opportunities. I am a huge advocate of university. I would not be here if it wasn't for university. I love university. University changed my life. But that's not for everybody. The traditional learning route is not for everybody. It should be open to everybody, but it's not for everybody. There should be other methods that young people can get real enjoyment and money out of, I would say. The other thing as well is outreach work. There's no outreach work anymore. So you used to be at the park and workers would come over to you and be like, hi, can I have a chat with you? Like detached youth workers and things like that. They don't exist anymore. You wouldn't find any at the park or anything like that. You work with your caseload and things like that. There's no funding for it. The other needs that is absolutely not being met is the mental health of the young people that experience road life. So my team's heavily trauma-informed. So we've had a lot of training on trauma-informed practice, and we recognize the impact of trauma very much. And I just don't think that people realize the trauma. It was really interesting, actually. I don't think people realize the trauma that young people on road go through or young people before they're on road go through. Kanan said to me once that it's worse than being a soldier because even soldiers get to go home from the army to have their break with their family, whether it be for a week, they can go home and feel relatively safe. When you're on road, you can't. You can't go home and shut the door and feel safe. You're scared your door's going to get booted off any minute, and someone's going to come after your mum or your sister or something. So the need to be so hyper-vigilant and always on alert when you're in that life is traumatic enough as it is, I would say. So yeah, the role of trauma whilst on road and the role of trauma before it, I think we have to... It's everything I'm talking about. These 14-year-olds wanting money, knowing that their parents can't afford these things, and just living, surviving in the UK, I think is pretty hard right now, and that's coming from somebody who's on a relatively good wage, I would say. It's still a struggle. So just the trauma of experiencing poverty, the trauma of living in these working-class backgrounds, turning on your TV every day, seeing you and your friends or people that look like you being deemed as outsiders of all these labels on the media, and then, yeah, just looking around you, thinking, I don't have the same opportunity as him. Oh, my parents couldn't afford for me to do my driving lessons when I turned 17 and buy me a car and things like that. Just the trauma of relative deprivation of living in the UK and seeing all the success that everyone else is achieving that you don't feel like you can. You've mentioned training. Do you think that training could help more people to potentially understand and engage with these communities that you work with? Sometimes, to me, it does just feel like basic knowledge, but then, again, I have to remember everybody's own intersecting identities and remember that everybody's been through different things in life. I think when you work with young people, there's a lot of empathy that goes into it. I'm a very empathetic person, and I have to remember that not everybody is that way. But, yeah, trauma-informed training, absolutely. I think they need to understand there needs to be a psychosocial approach to it. So you need to understand the psychology behind it, being that you need to understand the trauma they're going through, and you need to also understand the sociology of it, being their position in the UK as a working-class person from an urban area. So you need to have them both approaches to it, for sure. If you don't understand what somebody's gone through to get there, you are probably just going to look at them and judge them and label them as something bad. So, yeah, definitely training. Vicarious trauma training for the workers, because I love my job. But it could be a lot at times. You're very invested in the young people that you work with. You care about them. Things can frustrate you. So, yeah, trauma training for the workers, because you can get trauma through the trauma that you're working with, if that makes sense. So I think you need to be aware of the young people's trauma, but you also need training to be aware of the impact of the trauma on yourself. Another element of training that I love to advocate for is contextual safeguarding. To put it simply, traditional safeguarding in social care is based in the family home. So, are you safe within your family home? Yes or no? Whereas the young people that I'm dealing with, often, most of the time, their families are doing all they can. Their parents are doing all they can to keep them safe. But once they leave that family home, there's risk outside of that family home. So it's called contextual safeguarding. So it's recognising that there's safeguarding concerns that happen outside of the home. Absolutely. So like neighbourhoods, schools, things like that. Then it's about mapping them areas. What can we do to make that area safer? What can we do to make that area less desirable for drug dealing? And things like that. But obviously, at the same time, it can't just be a disruptive tool. You can't just say, let's put cameras and lights up and move them because they're going to move somewhere else. Do you know what I mean? So you need to do some other sort of intervention as well as disruption, if that makes sense. So yeah, contextual safeguarding, I think all social care teams should adopt because road life is everywhere in absolutely every county of the UK at this point, I would say. And then the only other trainer I could suggest is a man named Craig Pinkney. He's awesome. He offers, he has his own Solve Centre, the Centre for Serious Youth Violence based in the Midlands up in Birmingham. But he does a lot of work with Chelsea Football Club and things like that. He very much comes from the same type of viewpoint that it's a lot deeper than what everybody thinks it is and that we need to have a real understanding of youth culture, pretty much. But yeah, he offers some excellent training as well. That's fascinating. What I'm hearing is that understanding and empathy is very important. By looking at it as road life, it offers us so much more insight than just looking at these labels of county lines and gangs and things like that. We are accepting that there is another way of living in the UK that which most of the time people from working class and urban backgrounds feel that is the best chance of them succeeding. So it allows us to see that there's another road. So there's an alternative avenue that some people see as their only way. And we have to recognise why. Why are young people risking their lives? To me, this is the most serious matter. It's the biggest issue. Our young people are dying, killing themselves because they feel that's the only opportunity for them to transcend their environment. So by using road, not only does it make young people recognise that we're listening. I'm not trying to label you with terms that you reject. I'm listening to what you call it, what you experience and what the reality is. But it also allows for more in-depth analysation of what is this other type of culture, way of living, that's been created in the UK and how did we get here? That's something that I want to, in my PhD, look at more, look at how we kind of got here and look at that deeper, definitely. That sounds fascinating. I guess to finish, I'll just ask, what are some myths about the communities that you work with that you would like to dispel? That people who are involved in drug dealing, even people involved in knife crime and serious use of violence, are scary and bad and savages. If you see somebody stab somebody, you're gonna, people just automatically think that they're bad. And obviously that's such a serious thing to have done, but there's just a lot more to it than that. I've never liked, not liked anybody I did it work with. I've been in this role for five years, I've met many young people and they're all amazing. They are all kids and they're all lovely and they all have so much potential. So yeah, just to remember that like they're children and they're not bad and scary. We need to understand that there's other plausible explanations. It's not either you're bad or you're being made to do bad. There's something in the middle. And what is that? And I could say, yeah, they're children. They're sweet, they're respectful, they're insightful, they're our future. We need to start treating them with the same empathy that we want people to treat our children with, for example. And yeah, I think it comes back to the general thing that people just simply choose to be a drug dealer or to become a roadman. It's not a simple choice. It is a choice that they don't even realise they're making. It's just a path that they go down based on so many different interactions in their entire life. And ultimately, they're making constrained choices based on a degree of suffering that they endure daily just by living the life that they live. Other myths that I would like to bust is that marginalised communities cannot transcend their environment without illegitimate means. Yes, it is more difficult for them and they do not have the same opportunities as other people. But I'm always telling my young people they can be anything they want to be. Some of these young men are some of the best businessmen I've ever seen. If they put their business skills of drug dealing and things like that, the maths that comes with it and all of that, the accountancy into other professions, they would thrive. They have so much to offer. They have more to offer than the most, I think. The more experience you go through, the more character you build, the more of a person you are, the more empathy you have for others and things like that. So for me, really, I just want to let the young people of the 21st century know that they're not a lost generation. They've experienced a whole new way of living in the postmodern UK that is difficult to manage. But despite their odds and the current climate, they do have the power to change the world for the better. And it's never too late to create anything you want for yourself and to try and change your circumstances. Yeah. Well, this has been fascinating. I've really enjoyed speaking to you, Beth. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. This has been In Conversation from the Rudd Centre, University of Cambridge. Thanks for listening.
