Pubdate: Thu, 23 May 2013
Source: North Bay Nugget (CN ON)
Copyright: 2013 North Bay Nugget
Contact: http://www.nugget.ca/letters
Website: http://www.nugget.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2226
Author: Maria Calabrese

Education: Young People Need Male Role Models

STUDENTS GET GLIMPSE OF GANG LIFE

He was unlikely bait for a life of gang crime, and a cautionary tale 
for hundreds of students who had the chance to hear his story.

Rick Osborne was a clean-cut teen in Niagara Falls when he was led to 
a residence, held down and injected with heroin. It was the beginning 
of a downward spiral into drug addiction, sexual abuse, cutting and 
initiation into an outlaw motorcycle gang by the time he was 17 as an 
enforcer to rob drug dealers.

Osborne spent almost 25 years in prison, and beat the odds by 
becoming a master mechanic and studying psychology and addictions 
care before forming an outreach organization for troubled teens.

"You have unique problems that other communities wouldn't have," 
Osborne said following one of the eight school presentations he gave 
to local students this week through the North Bay and Area Drug 
Strategy Committee.

The city attracts "weekend gangsters" and gets some of its drugs as 
dealers pass through, creating a transient business that makes it 
more difficult to gather information, Osborne said.

Others dump their drugs here and pull money out of the community, he said.

The biggest problem in every community where he speaks is the lack of 
men and male role models involved with youths, he said.

Osborne doesn't bring his message to prisons, but makes it a point to 
reach out to young people held in custody or serving sentences in 
youth facilities.

He said some people who have an early taste of prison life are 
attracted to it like an abusive relationships that provides them with 
food, shelter and a certain amount of comfort compared to what they 
get on the outside.

"It's a learned helplessness," Osborne said.

"When you leave, it pulls you back."

Prisons are filled with men who have had bad lives, and reaching out 
to young people is a way to stop the next level of criminality.

He brought his youth mentorship program to Sudbury where troubled 
kids have been involved in a project to rebuilt a motorcycle that was 
raffled off to raise money for the program.

Osborne said he hopes to bring that program to North Bay.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom