Chapter 14: Drug and Alcohol Addictions, Sexual Exploitation and Poverty

This chapter outlines how drug and alcohol addictions can lead to crime victimisation, crime offending, debt and poverty. The authors look at addictions from the medical and social model and the impacts of addictions upon people’s lives, including wider social harms that incorporate criminal activity. Drug and alcohol addictions are acknowledged in internationally recognised mental health diagnostic tools and as such, we will give attention to co-occurring conditions where people are using drugs and/or alcohol and are experiencing mental health challenges. This chapter explores the interface between addictions, sexual exploitation, and poverty, with a focus on the harms experienced by being addicted to alcohol and drugs. A gendered lens will be applied to appreciate the additional challenges and inequalities faced by women with addictions and the additional stigmatisation experienced from being perceived as a multiple deviant. Legislation typically relates to manufacturing, possession and supply of drugs and alcohol and more recently in the UK there has been a focus on ‘county-lines’, this in essence relates to the drug trafficking routes and associated mobile phone communication connections internally within the country (across county lines). Whilst this chapter does not focus on county lines, it does consider how the most vulnerable in society are targets for county-lines and stigmatised through current and historic drugs policy. We advocate for a holistic and trauma informed approach to addressing addictions in the UK and that policy be revisited to be more gender informed.