Drugs, Race, and the Politics of Modern Slavery Law: When Enemies Become Victims

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—voices rarely heard in law—Insa Lee Koch reveals how state protection often functions as a form of control. Across policing, government offices, and courtrooms, efforts to protect the vulnerable ignore the structural dispossession and state racism that these communities face. Koch powerfully shows how family members who advocate for their children not only face bureaucratic hurdles but also find themselves silenced—even criminalized—for trying to make alternative stories heard.

Drugs, Race and the Politics of Modern Slavery Law argues that the modern slavery agenda is far from an unqualified good. As the law expands its definition of victimhood, it simultaneously strengthens the state's punitive powers, deepens racial injustice amidst a deepening socio-economic crisis, and revives colonial logics of redemption. These logics recast Black and racialised working-class communities as both 'slaves' and their 'masters'—reviving a powerful enemy within, and with devastating consequences for those targeted and their families. Urgent and innovative, this book is a must-read for academics, lawyers, practitioners, and activists seeking to understand how imperial legacies remain central to policies that claim to further progressive and social justice agendas.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.