(Cantab) is a Detective Inspector with the Surrey Police, assigned to the Criminal Justice Department.
(Oxon) FBA is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the London School of Economics.
(Australian National University) is the Director of the Jerry Lee Centre of Experimental Criminology at the University of Cambridge.
To what extent could police identify victims of modern slavery among growers arrested on cannabis farms as suspects under drug laws, and what challenges of evidence would have to be met to separate offending from victimisation?
A purposive sample of criminal history data of all Vietnamese nationals arrested for cannabis cultivation offences in Surrey/Sussex in the 3 years to 2017 (
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the three arrested growers to explore their lived experiences of recruitment and labour on the farms. Arresting police officers were also interviewed to explore how they frame the problem of cannabis cultivation and make decisions about their role in confronting it. Interview transcripts were prepared for analytic purposes. All interviewees were informed that the research was focused on the management of the policing of cannabis farms alone and full anonymity was assured.
Five of the 19 Vietnamese nationals had previous criminal disposals. Of the remaining 14 individuals, five had no record and nine had various charges, but the prosecutions had not reached court.
Of the three cases examined in depth, the arrested growers provided stories consistent with their having been trafficked and subjected to ‘debt bondage’. They described precarious journeys before being forced to work on UK farms. All three had been exposed to threats of violence or death for themselves and/or their families, should they attempt escape. Varying levels of mental and physical hardship were evidenced. There were a priori reasons to conclude that they were eligible to be considered modern slavery victims. When arrested, however, none had pleaded victimisation. Police officers demonstrated an ignorance of related legislation and varying levels of awareness of the possibility of modern slavery. They responded to the first impression made by the grower as a person culpable under drugs laws. Even where officers had concerns about modern slavery, no appropriate crime was recorded, and no formalised investigation followed.
Given reluctance or inability to frame the police response to cannabis farms under modern anti-slavery legislation, policing agencies should consider adopting more detailed practice guidelines to officers on how to react to the complex challenges involved, including the investigative opportunities that may help unearth modern slavery on cannabis farms through greater encouragement of victim accounts.
Two hundred years after William Wilberforce and the UK led the world in abolishing the transatlantic slave trade, modern slavery has recently been described as ‘disturbingly common’ worldwide (
The establishment in 2014 of the IASC and the introduction in 2015 of the
This view was endorsed by the IASC Strategic Plan 2019–2021 (2019: pp. 14–15): The new legislation established a statutory defence to protect victims who have committed criminal offences as a direct result of their exploitation. There are cases where victims have not used this defence and been imprisoned. There are cases where criminals have attempted to abuse this defence. There is little clarity about the use of this defence which makes it harder to know that victims are being protected and the system is being protected for those who seek to abuse the defence.
Much of the public interest in modern slavery, and the intersection of victimisation and offending for those caught up in a web of criminality, has focused on women trafficked for prostitution and children involved in ‘county lines’ offending. There are, however, substantial numbers of men, many of them foreign nationals, involved in criminal activities for which their particular circumstances make them vulnerable. Cannabis ‘farms’ are such an activity, referring to what are usually urban residences turned into small factories for the production of commercial quantities of drugs.
Cannabis is the UK’s and the world’s most popular drug by some distance and is consumed by a wide cross section of society (Winstock et al.
Research on the commercial illegal cultivation of cannabis is thin. We do not know how much of the labour force involved is enslaved. Yet recent findings suggest (Burland
Apprehended cannabis growers may indeed be committing crimes, but the Law Society (
Burland (
Hedge and Tarzi (
The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) (
In summary, there is a dearth of understanding about the cannabis growers’ lived experiences as well as the perceptions and decision-making processes of the police officers themselves dealing with these incidents. In an age of the so-called ‘empowerment’ of the police, officers are meant to be given the authority to deal ethically with incidents they face. This study offers an illustrative analysis of modern slavery associated with a small number of indicative examples of cannabis farms in the UK. It is intended to enhance the understanding of modern slavery associated with commercial illegal cannabis cultivation and to explore how these cases are interpreted by the police.
Research Questions
This study aims to answer two central research questions: To what extent do the police treat growers arrested on cannabis farms primarily as suspects under drug laws rather than as victims of enslavement? Is there evidence that current enforcement practices for cannabis production laws have failed to detect slavery victims?
The study used three methods of data collection and analysis.
First, the study obtained a police data set consisting of all Vietnamese nationals arrested and prosecuted for cannabis cultivation over a 3-year period (2014–2017) in Surrey and Sussex (
Second, the study reviewed the written records of the formal police response to three selected cases.
Third, the study conducted semi-structured interviews with three arrested cannabis growers and the police officers involved in their arrests.
Case studies have been described by Yin (
These methods have clear limitations. Case studies have been criticised for their perceived lack of scientific rigour (Campbell and Stanley
The small number of interviews for the case study means this study makes no claim that those individuals interviewed can be representative of all cases of cannabis growers or police officers, yet the small number meant the individuals could be interviewed in depth.
The experiences of growers were essential for this study, so the decision about which cases to use as studies was informed by which cannabis growers could be interviewed. Organisations such as the Salvation Army and Vietnamese Embassy, which provide safeguarding for trafficked cannabis growers, were contacted, but they were protective of the people they were safeguarding, and no interviews could be arranged. So the growers were ultimately identified through personal contacts, with the crime reports providing the most recent record of where they were.
Case study A concerned a 34-year-old Vietnamese man in prison in the South East of England. He had been arrested for cannabis cultivation and interviewed in the presence of a legal advisor and an interpreter. Having admitted the offence, he pleaded guilty at court and was awaiting sentence. He was interviewed on two occasions through an interpreter. Contact was also made with the two police officers involved in the investigation, i.e. the interviewing officer and the officer leading the investigation, and each was interviewed.
Case study B was contacted via case study A and was in the same prison. He was a 23-year-old Vietnamese man who had received legal advice: he provided a ‘no comment’ interview to the police, had pleaded guilty at court and was awaiting sentence. He was interviewed through an interpreter. A telephone interview was conducted with the interviewing/investigating officer in the case.
Case study C was a 22-year-old Albanian man, in custody at a London police station, having been arrested for cannabis cultivation. The interview with him by the first author, a police officer, was conducted in the custody suite outside the legal constraints of the statutory PACE process, based on an undertaking given that the interview content would not be shared with the police investigating the case. A telephone interview was conducted later with the interviewing/investigating officer in the case.
It was not possible to pick and choose whom to interview, and given the small number of interviewees, the sample was almost certainly biased though in ways that could not be determined. The three arrestees interviewed were located opportunistically, rather than on any basis relating to the likelihood that they had been trafficked or victimised. Semi-structured interview schedules were used for both the cannabis growers and the police officers involved in their cases. The officers were told that the research was about cannabis factories, but modern slavery was not mentioned. The aim of that presentation was to avoid ‘priming’ them in a way that might have prompted them to give what they considered desirable answers.
The decision to use interpreters was made because the growers spoke limited English. They could convey some meaning, but the effort required to communicate adequately in a second language, especially when emotions or sensitive topics are broached, has been found to result in impoverished accounts (Nicassio et al.
This study posed particular ethical issues and therefore utilised the British Society of Criminology Statement of Ethics (BSC
The qualitative aspect of this research required deeper ethical consideration, however. The cannabis growers were foreign nationals, non-English speakers, and incarcerated for offences associated with serious organised crime. Sykes (
The analysis of the criminal histories of the 19 Vietnamese nationals arrested in connection with cannabis farming in Surrey/Sussex in the three years to 2017 showed that the majority (14) had no previous criminal disposal recorded against them in the UK, i.e. no criminal reprimand, caution or conviction. Of the 14, however, only five had no recorded evidence of suspected criminality (as distinct from a sanction) whatever. Nine had various ‘non-convictions’; that is, they had previously been charged with criminal offences yet those prosecutions had not reached court. The offences that these individuals were charged with relate to immigration and also possible involvement with cannabis. Of the five individuals with formal disposals, the offences were various: immigration matters, possible involvement in cannabis cultivation and in one case a serious assault and robbery. These findings set the context for the two Vietnamese arrestees interviewed, as well as for the one Albanian arrestee.
Case study A involved an incident reported to Surrey Police in April 2015 and recorded as an offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1973―being concerned in the production of a class B drug. The crime report reveals that police were initially called after fire broke out in a maisonette above a laundrette on the high street of a market town. The fire was deemed non-suspicious, and nobody was present, but investigators found 349 cannabis plants throughout the premises. The suspected cannabis grower was arrested in Nottingham 2 years later when he was stopped for a minor traffic infringement. He was taken to Surrey and interviewed under caution in relation to the 2015 offence. The interview was conducted in the presence of an interpreter and a legal advisor.
The police interview in this case lasted 23 min. The interviewing officer asked 30 questions, of which 24 concerned the cannabis growing offence, whilst the remainder were about whether the grower was forced. The grower said he wished to plead guilty and was charged with the production of a class B controlled substance. He was remanded to court and was awaiting sentence at the time the interview for this study was done.
The grower had worked as a taxi driver before he became involved in events that meant he had to leave Vietnam. He described participating in an anti-China protest in response to the Chinese deployment of an oil rig in a disputed region of the South China Sea. The police attended his house, and spoke to his wife, accusing him of inciting people to protest and therefore betraying his country. This made him fearful for his life, as a friend who had been arrested by the government was never seen again. Friends introduced him to an ‘agent’, who could help him leave Vietnam for the equivalent of £20,000. The grower’s friends and wife accumulated some of the money. As he was unable to pay the full amount, the grower entered into a contract with the agent, which amounted to debt bondage: I could only afford to pay them six thousand pounds, so the rest … they told me, I have a contract with them; I have to work for them for one year to repay the debt. If I try to run away if they found me they would kill me, they said I wouldn’t see my family if I tried to escape. I think they tried to threaten me in order to not escape.
He continued by lorry to China, where an agent took his passport, without explanation. He boarded a plane to Russia and then went by lorry once more, though sometimes he was taken on foot. He described the precariousness of the journey and the violence that the agents sometimes inflicted on the travellers: When we were walking in the [forest] at night…from Russia to Poland…the agent doesn’t want the immigration control to find out…so you have to walk for maybe two, three days…I saw one person had been beaten up…he walked behind me…when I turned round, he was unconscious, and people around me told me he had been beaten up…I believe he walked too slow and he making a lot of noises.
The grower was sometimes given up to one hundred pounds and allowed to go out and buy food. He slept on a blanket on the floor, in a cannabis-free room. He was given a phone to contact his family in Vietnam, as well as five to ten pounds a week, which he spent on ‘phone calls home’. He said he was never assaulted in the house. When asked whether he was able to leave the cannabis house, the grower described his trepidation, saying he felt forced to conduct the work, due to the threats he had been subjected to: I do not dare to leave the house without telling them, because I fear for my life. Also I fear for my family’s life in Vietnam. If I escape they could try to look for me and also my family. They threaten me before. They told me if I tried to escape they would harm my family, so I knew they would do it.
The police interviewer of the grower was a 33-year-old probationary police officer. This was his first cannabis farm case. He was given a ‘handover’ package, including an interview plan; he was directed to interview the suspect and then refer the matter to the CPS. He did not retain any other oversight of the investigation. The officer viewed the matter relatively simply and believed he did not need much guidance: You always go in with an open mind, but he’s the suspect, he’s linked to the crime as a suspect, there’s no denying that, so you’re interviewing him as a suspect to get a confession, or to get the points across to get the conviction or charge… I knew what to do. I didn’t necessarily need any direction.
A further interview was done with the officer in charge (OIC) of the investigation. This interview provided a summary of his investigation, including the forensic submissions made, which led to the identification of the grower. He said that he had dealt with cannabis farm cases on a few previous occasions. In this instance, he was given supervision by his sergeant. He believed that the interpretation of the grower’s statements was the responsibility of the attending officers. All officers had been given 1-h-long training session on the subject of modern slavery which he said was insufficient. He said that until guidance was improved, police had to rely on their professional instincts.
The OIC had, however, submitted an NRM (National Referral Mechanism) referral, on the basis of the information provided by the grower during his interview. This is the formal procedure by which possible modern slavery victims are identified and given support. The NCA, however, had returned this with the decision that the grower was not a slavery victim, commenting:
Modern slavery (Trafficking) has three component parts – action, means, and purpose, the purpose being for exploitation. When you say it doesn’t matter if he consented, in terms of modern slavery (trafficking) it does. If he’s consented then he hasn’t been subjected to any of the means and he hasn’t been subjected to exploitation.
The attending police officer interviewer described the simplicity with which he had viewed his task―the interviewing of the suspect―which suggested a presumption that the grower should be treated as a
The police interviewer’s view can be contrasted with the perspective of the OIC. He had concerns about modern slavery and made an NRM referral, yet seemed persuaded by the narrative that growers are offenders. Similarly to the interviewing officer, he mentioned that the grower had a previous conviction for involvement in cannabis cultivation, which appears to have persuaded him that the grower should be treated as a suspect. Neither officer described an investigation to unearth modern slavery.
Yet the story provided by the grower is a compelling one suggesting modern slavery. The grower described a situation of debt bondage and having entered into a ‘contract’ before he left Vietnam. From the start, he was subjected to death threats and threats of violence. He had his passport taken from him by his traffickers. He was subjected to a precarious journey, when members of his travelling party were beaten and possibly killed. The details of the work that the victim would complete in the UK were withheld. Although he was not locked in the house, he felt unable to leave, and forced to work, due to the threats he had received.
To summarise, when the suspect was arrested, the presumption made by the officers was that he was an offender, not that he may have been a victim. As a result, no investigation was made that may have revealed otherwise.
Case study B involved a cannabis farm discovered by the Metropolitan Police in June 2017 after an apparent attempted burglary at the premises. The Vietnamese man present was arrested for cannabis cultivation, illegal entry into the UK and abstracting electricity. In custody, he was interviewed in the presence of his legal advisor and an interpreter. The interview lasted 10 min, comprising 11 questions, which were almost entirely about the cannabis set-up and the grower’s involvement. He stated that he was there to water the plants. Otherwise, he answered ‘no comment’ to all questions, including the one posed regarding potential modern slavery. No modern slavery crime report was created, and no investigation regarding that matter was conducted. The grower pleaded guilty at court and was awaiting sentence at the time of this study’s interview.
The grower said he had wished to leave Vietnam to improve his economic situation. His mother borrowed money from neighbours, to pay agents to smuggle him to Russia. He had no passport, so the agents arranged paperwork for him. He had worked for several years in Russia as a factory machinist, accumulating savings. To travel to the UK, he had made a long and dangerous journey through Europe, involving smugglers by whom he was subjected to debt bondage: I have to pay them. I were told by the agent that if I wanted to go to the UK, they would arrange it, but I would have to work for them to pay the debt. The Vietnamese man told me to work. He said work to finish in order to pay off the debt, and if you work hard you could leave this place, but remember never, never think about escape. I was told that if I tried to escape then I would be in trouble if they found me. They didn’t tell me that they would kill me, they said they would harm me.
The OIC in this case said that he had volunteered to deal with this individual in custody but had been given very little direction. The training he had received on modern slavery had consisted of a 20-min input at training school. He remarked that he had considered potential trafficking offences and sought to establish whether the grower had been forced: I obviously put various questions forward, trying to ascertain if he was forced or coerced into working in the address, which through an interpreter he said that he wasn’t, asked him what his role was, and he said it was to water plants.
Asked about better ways to deal with hidden modern slavery on cannabis farms, the officer said that more effective questioning may help to unearth it. However, when faced with a cannabis grower in custody, he said that the policing responsibility did not extend beyond asking him or her about any victimisation.
As in case study A, the officer believed the police bore the responsibility for asking a grower whether they had been victimised, but he thought that the onus was on a grower to reveal that victimisation. The grower was not questioned thoroughly about modern slavery. Even had he been, he may still not have divulged much information, due to the legal advice he was given to answer ‘no comment’ during his police interview and later to plead guilty.
As before, the police managed this as a drugs case, with the presumption that the grower was an offender. As such, there was very limited questioning of the grower around modern slavery. No other investigation was conducted to seek to establish whether he was a victim so therefore the police failed to identify him as such.
The subject was a 22-year-old Albanian male, with no known criminal record, arrested following the execution of a search warrant of premises with a sophisticated growing set-up for 70 cannabis plants and accompanying equipment.
In custody, the suspect was interviewed for 9 min in the presence of his legal advisor and an interpreter. He answered ‘no comment’ throughout, including to the one question which may have assisted with an understanding of whether he was a victim of modern slavery, i.e. ‘are you being forced into growing the cannabis?’ This was potentially an opportunity missed, possibly due to the legal advice that the grower received.
The grower stated he was an Albanian who had come to the UK for economic reasons. He had been threatened that time was running out to pay back his debt of 12,000 Euros, the cost of being smuggled to the UK. The agent said that he had a job for him growing cannabis and that if he worked in the house for 3 months, his debt would be settled.
The investigating officer said that when he was initially allocated this matter, his supervisor asked him to interview the grower and then release him under investigation. The officer was unhappy with this as he was concerned that the grower may have been a trafficking victim and viewed him with some sympathy. He had asked if he was held against his will but not whether he had faced threats or violence. To all questions, the grower answered ‘no comment’.
The officer said the police were often frustrated by the stance adopted by growers: We are there to try and help people in these situations. But if they don’t want to talk to the police it’s sort of hitting a brick wall really. In terms of him possibly being trafficked or forced into those conditions, there’s always ways out of it, but if they’re not ready to help you and talk to you, you can’t really do much for them, can you?
This case indicates that the police response may often be ‘framed’ (Goffman
A reading of these cases might give the impression that police did consider modern slavery and did not entirely presume that the growers should be dealt with as suspects. After all, in each case, the suspect interviews included questioning regarding modern slavery. Also, in two of the cases, NRM referrals were made. Despite these considerations, however, the in-depth study suggests that a particular set of presumptions prevail in the police response.
At the heart of all these cases is an individual whose account raises substantial concerns that he may have been a modern slavery victim. The accounts are not identical. They reveal a range of abuses which could have been inflicted in the period between victims leaving their homeland and the discovery of their involvement in cannabis cultivation. But they share common themes. All three growers presented narratives of debt bondage backed up by threats as the reason that they performed criminal acts. A cynic might point to the words of Mandy Rice-Davies―“He would say that wouldn’t he?”―but such a view might be myopic, given the growers’ compelling stories, coupled with previous research suggesting an empirical link between cannabis growing and modern slavery (NPCC
The police framing of growers as drugs criminals, with the accompanying perfunctory consideration of modern slavery fits nicely with traditional, ‘binary’ concepts of slavery. However, these cases have demonstrated the reality of how a narrative of smuggling can be transformed into one of trafficking, as Campana and Varese (
Of at least equal significance is the role of legal advisors and the advice they appear routinely and probably uncritically to give to individuals in such cases. The content of discussions between a suspect and their legal advisor are subject to ‘legal privilege’ which means they are protected from police scrutiny. It can be assumed, however, that lawyers may advise clients to admit guilt in order to receive a reduced sentence. Typically, when a cannabis grower is found or linked to a cannabis farm, they are charged with cultivation. Under Section 6 of the 1971 Act, cultivation is a triable ‘either way’ offence, punishable with a maximum of 14 years imprisonment and/or a fine when tried on indictment in a Crown Court. When tried summarily (in a Magistrates’ Court), the maximum sentence is 6 month imprisonment and/or a fine. Faced with the choice between fighting charges in the Crown Court and pleading guilty in the lower court, many may prefer ‘going quietly’ rather than risk a lengthy sentence.
In his book,
Cannabis farm criminality might be seen as an exemplar of the police misframing their response, perhaps not seeing past the ‘otherness’ of those involved and failing to realise their suffering.
Despite the limitations of this study, it suggests that modern slavery may be present during the commercial cultivation of cannabis and in the ‘continuum of unfreedom’ and multiple abuses that growers may experience. These abuses are not necessarily consistent with traditional or binary explanations; victims may be held against their will, forced to work and be unable to leave, despite an unlocked door.
These findings have the following policy implications:
i)
ii)
iii)
Large questions remain about how the criminal justice system should ethically manage modern slavery victims who are also illegal immigrants involved in illegal activity. Yet research in the field is gathering momentum, and this small study may contribute to a growing body of knowledge about these victim/offenders.
At the Accademia art gallery in Florence stand four unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo Buonarroti. Often ignored by gallery-goers focused on the nearby and exalted David, these ‘quattro prigioni’, or ‘four slaves’, were left incomplete by Michelangelo. The slaves writhe amidst the hardship of their existence, but owing to their unfinished state, they remain obscured by the rock from which they appear unable to free themselves. An observer has an impression of the individual, yet not the entire human―perhaps emblematic of the current state of modern slavery in the UK with so much still to be learned.
The first author wishes to thank the chief officers of Surrey Police for making this study possible. He us particularly grateful to then-DCC (now Chief Constable) Gavin Stephens, who enabled him to enrol in the Cambridge University M.St. course in applied criminology and police management, for which this study was conducted as a thesis. He is also grateful to the numerous colleagues who have helped him, most notably Simon Rose, Sam Taylor and his fellow Surrey students, as well as the cannabis growers and the police officers who agreed to be interviewed for this research.
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