Pubdate: Thu, 19 Jul 2012
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Jeff Pearce

SCARBOROUGH SHOOTINGS RENEW TIRED OLD DEBATES ABOUT GANGS

After the horrific shooting in Scarborough, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford
first declared that "everyone has to move on and carry on with their
life" (those who are still living or not in a hospital bed), and now
he's decided to declare war on gangs. Ford apparently also wants to
ask Premier Dalton McGuinty for more money for policing the "idiot
thugs." Meanwhile, other voices have raised another shrill cry about
social programs and poverty.

The problem is that gangs don't fit neatly or conveniently into the
world views of either the tough-on-crime camp or the
let's-throw-money-at-the-problem advocates. Yes, social inequity and
domestic trouble can equal gang - sometimes. But not in all cases.
Just ask the Vancouver police, who have had to deal with Punjabi
gangsters like the late Bindy Johal and others, many of whom come from
middle-class, even privileged backgrounds of traditional families.
Journalist Renu Bakshi wrote a powerful article on this for Maclean's
in 2002.

As for the "idiot thugs," as Ford calls them, police officers across
the country will tell you that gang members vary in intelligence and
sophistication. Some are idiots, while others use GPS to track their
targets and shop for "kill kits" of disposable clothing. Some run
drugs, others run highly sophisticated schemes (as Johal did) to rip
off loads from trucking firms.

You can't address an issue before you understand it. And the big
problem with the gang issue is that few are doing their homework.
There is either convenient political outrage (like Ford's) or demands
for a yet another study. But gangs don't need to be studied. We
already have information. We even have approaches that can and do work.

There are organizations here and in Regina, Winnipeg and Montreal that
have effective models for steering young people away from gang life. A
Calgary police constable, Garrett Swihart, has been decorated for
wonderful work in helping young people out of gangs. In Toronto,
there's Redemption Reintegration Services, which offers a unique and
culturally responsive model for African and Caribbean Canadian youth,
consisting of pre-release planning, a community justice program,
counselling and other services.

But no one seems to be paying attention to these initiatives. It's as
if each city is in a hermetically sealed bubble where community
workers - and reporters, for that matter - don't talk to each other.
If we were "smart enough," government policy leaders and those
concerned across the country would exchange information about
approaches, rather than leaving community workers to reinvent the
wheel on a local basis and then hunt for funding. Police forces have
already learned this lesson and co-ordinate with each other for major
gang sweeps like Project Marvel last December.

The Toronto cops will likely be knocked again over this latest
violence. The truth is that they've heard the tired, old themes before
from the usual consultants and commentators. Someone invariably opines
that we have a new "Wild West" among gangsters when this is nothing
new at all. Back in 2009, Vancouver police chief, Jim Chu talked
publicly about how "they are now shooting each other when they don't
have to."

Wait five seconds and someone else will drag out the old saw about
legalizing drugs, as if this will bleed the life force from gangs.
Let's remember that it's not the illegality of the drugs that makes
gang members criminals - they're criminals to begin with. Our laws on
pot may be ridiculous, yes, but please don't fool yourself that
throwing them out will reduce gang crime. You might recall that
Toronto police charged three people a while back at a flea market over
$1 million worth of knock-off luxury goods, toys and DVDs. Whether it
was gang-related or not is hardly the issue - the point is that you
can bet gangs would want a piece of that kind of action. And they do
deal in stolen and knock-off merchandise.

These tedious cliches - poverty, drug laws, the notion that brazen
violence is new - only clog intelligent discussion. My personal
favourite is the bugaboo of culture. You either believe violent movies
and hip-hop music are to blame or you don't. There's never any middle
ground. And what is sad is that this sideshow hardly matters. We can
go deeper.

Consider one of the solutions always touted for kids in gangs: sports.
Terrific, yet we keep selling kids the idea that if you're a winning
athlete, you'll get that scholarship or we'll put you on a cereal box.
It's individual glory. How many heroes can you name for kids who are
in biology, chemistry, medicine - fields that contribute value to
everyone, not just for themselves? Now give me the name of someone in
these fields who's a Canadian and a minority.

Gang life is conscription onto a path of anarchy. If you want people,
especially young people, to reject anarchy, you'd better do a damn
good job of heralding the virtues of peace and order and the
prevailing moral values. And there's your problem. You want to lecture
people on "hard work?" You'd better sell them on what the hell they're
working so hard for.

And you'll never close, you'll never make that sale, when you haven't
sold young people on how cool it is, how exciting it is, to work on
nuclear physics or to be an architectural engineer or yes, to actually
save people and help them as a paramedic and a police officer. We're
not necessarily failing young people in social programs; we're failing
them in their intellectual aspirations.

Most important, if we want to get serious about the issue, we have to
recognize that there is not one single cause for gangs and no "one
size fits all" solution. If we want to be "smart enough," we have to
get past our comfortable preconceptions and actually talk to police
officers and community workers on the front line, instead of falling
back on tiresome and pointless cliched thinking.

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Jeff Pearce is the author of Gangs in Canada. He spoke on gangs at an
Ontario Public Service conference in May.
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