Modern slavery on UK cannabis farms | Letters

The anti-slavery commissioner has complained that data gathering for tracking victims of cannabis farms is "a mess" (Police 'failing to tackle' slave trafficking on cannabis farms, 25 March). It's actually much worse than that. We have just published a study of 39 young men working on cannabis farms in conditions of trafficking and forced labour. Despite the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the judges knowing in around half of the cases that they were victims of modern slavery, and despite the commissioner stating that they are not prosecuted, nearly all were in fact sentenced to prison terms, some for as long as 20 months. This not only makes a nonsense of the statutory defence for victims, which should prevent them being criminalised, it shows how ill-prepared the criminal justice system is to address issues of modern slavery. Meanwhile, as the commissioner notes, there has not been a single prosecution of the cannabis traffickers.
Gary Craig and Patrick Burland
Modern Slavery Research Consortium

" Your article sheds much-needed light on the dreadful consequences of UK policy on cannabis. Two very important points are missing, however.