Social change used to tackle gun violence
Toronto, Surrey looking to divert teens from crime
Faced with escalating gang violence and deadly shootings, British Columbia and Toronto are searching for ways to combat the crimes.
In British Columbia Tuesday, a Surrey task force aimed at reducing gang violence recommended expanding programs for people looking to get out of gang life, helping at-risk children and their families and implementing a bar watch program.
“I want to acknowledge the collective pain our community has suffered in the last few weeks,” Mayor Linda Hepner said, referring to a recent spate of fatal shootings.
“Lives have been lost and families have been destroyed and the entire community mourns for the loss of these victims of violence. We are devastated, but our commitment to tackling gang violence together is stronger than ever.”
The task force was formed in October 2017 and its mandate was to review existing programs, identify issues with those programs and services and prepare a report outlining recommendations for fighting gang violence. The task force involved elected officials from the city and federal government, school districts, law enforcement and community members.
The task force made six recommendations:
❚ Implement a middle years table to refer at-risk children and families for appropriate inter-agency interventions and services.
❚ Strengthen prevention program co-ordination, access and evaluation.
❚ Partner with the federal and provincial governments to develop a comprehensive neighbourhood-specific prevention program.
❚ Support the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit-British Columbia and the Surrey RCMP in informing citizens of the risks related to gang life.
❚ Expand and integrate the CFSEU-B.C. Gang Intervention, Exiting and Outreach services and widen the target population to support youth and adults to exit the gang lifestyle.
❚ Support the Surrey RCMP in developing and implementing an inadmissible patron program, like bar watch and restaurant watch.
One way the city plans to move ahead with the recommendations is to double the size of Surrey RCMP’s gang enforcement team, which will allow it to increase outreach, visibility and its ability to target gang members.
“If you are involved in gang violence, you are not welcome in this city,” said assistant commissioner Dwayne McDonald, the officer in charge of Surrey RCMP.
Meanwhile, reducing Toronto’s escalating gun violence, which has claimed 22 lives so far this year, will require social change and not a police crackdown, said politicians and researchers.
Ramping up the number of officers in at-risk neighbourhoods or reinstating controversial police practices like carding will only push crime to new areas and alienate members of the public, University of Toronto sociology professor Jooyoung Lee said.
“The long-term approach is really to address conditions like intergenerational urban poverty and racial discrimination in the labour market and helping youth of colour — who are particularly disadvantaged in cities like Toronto — to get a leg up,” said Lee, whose research centres on gun violence and gangs.
Young men are most likely to join gangs between the ages of 14 and 18 as they try to figure out who they are going to be as adults, Lee said.
“They may live in a context where they feel insecure about their safety, whether at the hands of other youth or at the hands of police officers, who they are skeptical of for a variety of reasons.”
Eleven people have been shot in Toronto since Friday. Two people from the city’s rap scene were killed in a daylight shooting Saturday — Jahvante Smart, 21, also known as Smoke Dawg, and Ernest Modekwe, 28, both of Toronto. A woman who was shot in the same incident is expected to recover, police said.
Mayor John Tory and police Chief Mark Saunders have both said the vast majority of shootings this year have been gang related.
“Being surgical, being strategic and being focused with that gang subculture is a huge concern of mine,” Saunders told local TV station CP24. “We’ve got a plan in play to look after it over the course of the summer.”
That plan involves “knowing who the players are” rather than saturating neighbourhoods with a police presence, he said.
LIVES HAVE BEEN LOST AND FAMILIES HAVE BEEN DESTROYED ...