Neil Mackay in the Herald today has:

Scotland’s gangland bosses break the nation’s ‘failed’ prison system. Jails are bursting at the seams, staff are exhausted, and as police arrest more and more organised crime members, Scotland’s prisons are in turmoil. Our Writer at Large reports

IT sounds like life for prison officers at the height of Ulster’s Troubles: intimidation, threats to kill, assassination plots, fire-bombings, and looking over your shoulder when you clock off and walk through the jail gates.

Given that overall crime is down by 40% since the SNP came to power in 2007, organised crime based on drugs, prostitution, child abuse and people trafficking is putting this additional pressure on but, let’s be clear, it’s not based in Scotland but in England’s cities.

If this was the work of ‘Scotland’s gangland bosses’, their mugshots would be all over the media. The mugshots are almost without exception of County Lines gang members from English cities.

County Lines gangs are known to use a level of violence previously unknown in Scotland.

It’s now more than 3 years since BBC Scotland’s last tentative wee mention of County Lines gangs but the Daily Mail in February 2024, had:

Rise of county lines gangs exploiting vulnerable Scots – top cop tells of threat from expanding drug networks. Scotland is seeing an explosion of ‘county lines’ gangs forcing children and vulnerable adults to smuggle drugs to every corner of the country.

The Scottish Mail on Sunday can reveal at least 55 gangs have been identified operating north of the Border – more than double the number in 2020.

County lines is the phenomenon whereby drug dealers from cities expand their operation by crossing county borders into smaller towns and rural areas.

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