Overview
- Home Office figures published on 8 October show more than 1,120 senior gang members charged and over 2,300 deal lines closed in the 12 months since July 2024, the highest annual totals since the programme began in 2019.
- Police focused on key transport routes and deployed automatic number plate recognition to disrupt supply chains, with the crime minister joining recent operations in Merseyside that led to an arrest.
- The programme reports over 3,200 safeguarding referrals and more than 500 instances of specialist one-to-one support delivered by Catch22 since last summer, supported by £43 million in government funding this year.
- The Crime and Policing Bill proposes new offences for criminal exploitation of children and coerced internal concealment (maximum 10-year sentences) and for cuckooing (maximum five years), with the legislation progressing through Parliament.
- An independent LSE analysis cited by the government links the programme to nearly a 20% reduction in stabbings in the hardest-hit areas, while charities urge statutory protections and warn exploited children should not be criminalised, with reports indicating many lines remain active nationwide.