Drugs, Race, and the Politics of Modern Slavery Law: When Enemies Become Victims (Clarendon Studies in Criminology)

As the Black Lives Matter movement highlights the legacies of transatlantic slavery and racial empire, the British state has launched a new moral crusade: the fight against 'modern slavery'.Enshrined in the Modern Slavery Act 2015, this agenda no longer treats modern slavery solely as a transnational crime but also as a domestic threat occurring within Britain's borders.Today, the most frequently identified 'slaves' are boys and young men from the country's deindustrialised working-class and multi-racial neighbourhoods.Once criminalised under the 'war on gangs', they are now reframed as victims of 'criminal exploitation' and 'trafficking' in regional drug distribution networks known as 'county lines'. Drugs, Race and the Politics of Modern Slavery Law examines what happens when communities once viewed as enemies of the system are redefined as legal victims.Grounded in the lived experiences of young drug dealers and their families&#8212voices rarely heard in law&#8212Insa Lee Koch revea