KarunaNews Story

Answering her front door one evening in 2011, Danielle Marin (not her real name) found herself staring at a gun. The target was her boyfriend, a prominent north London gang leader. Marin’s infant son was taken into care in the aftermath and she leapt headlong into her boyfriend’s drug operation, muling crack cocaine and heroin to a middle England tourist town from the group’s base in London. This model, where city-based gangs establish markets in rural towns, is known as county lines. With the help of London Gang Exit, then in its infancy, Marin was moved to a safe house in 2016 and today, after completing a degree in youth work, draws on her own lived experience working for a charity allied to Rescue and Response, commissioned by the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. In the last three years, more than 450 young people have engaged with the scheme, with over three-quarters reducing their involvement as a result.