YOUTH
PROOFING
Youth gangs today
While gangs have traditionally attracted young males to sell drug and commit crimes, research has shown the number of girls involved in gangs is on the rise. Girls are increasingly drawn by the lifestyle their gangster boyfriends provide — expensive designer clothes and eating at the best restaurants. The girls are
14 canadianimmigrant.ca
Illustration by Hemeterio
L
atoya Rodney was eight years old she first held a gun. “They gave it to me because I was small [and could hide it],” she says. “Somehow I knew to pull my sleeve over my hand to keep my fingerprints off.” Rodney, whose father immigrated to Canada from Jamaica and mother from England, grew up in Toronto’s roughest priority neighbourhood in the 1990s and was part of a gang by the age of nine. At 14, she was appointed the leader of a violent all-girl gang. “Youth gangs were named after candy bars and cartoons. We were the Lunettes, a female version of the Looney Tunes gang,” she says. Rodney was in charge of initiating new members. “They had to beat up girls. I remember one time I made this girl beat up a girl I didn’t like. You had to prove you were very violent to belong.” According to Rodney, although every race had gangs, ethnicity wasn’t the main factor that drew girls into them. It was low selfesteem. “Being in a gang made us feel big. When you don’t love yourself, you get involved in bad things. Notice how girls act, wearing baggy clothes and walking and talking like a guy. I didn’t even comb my hair. I was hiding because I didn’t love myself. I didn’t feel pretty. They called me ‘Creature.’”
How immigrant parents can keep their kids from becoming vulnerable to gang life By Nicole Breit
often used to hide guns and drugs because they are less likely to be searched by police. Recent studies have shown that the gang landscape in Canada has changed in other ways over the past few decades, too. While there are still gangs drawn on ethnic lines, the role of ethnicity has diminished in gang membership. Over the past 25 years gangs have become more diverse, ethnically and socioeconomically. A prime example is the UN gang, which first rose to prominence in B.C.’s Fraser Valley in the late 1990s. At its height, the gang had 200 members and, like the organization it was named after, represented dozens of different cultures. “Gangs are now run as business
September 2015
alliances forming mergers and making acquisitions,” says Sgt. Lindsey Houghton, spokesperson for B.C.’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (BCCFSEU), an organization whose mission is to provide gang awareness and prevention initiatives. “To gain strength, gangs had to diversify. If someone was from Central America or somewhere else with access to a better product in an illicit market, their background didn’t matter. They were in.”
Why kids join gangs
Still, immigrant youth are particularly vulnerable to the gang lifestyle. Dr. Hieu Van Ngo, assistant
professor in the University of Calgary’s School of Social Work, is an often-cited expert on why immigrant youth join gangs. His 2010 research report looked at why kids from immigrant families get involved in criminal gang activity and how to effectively support them. According to Vietnamese-born Van Ngo’s study, immigrant children fall prey to gangs to fill a void. When they experience discrimination, bullying or a loss of cultural identity, they gradually disengage from their families, schools and communities. ESL learners typically lag behind their peers academically, and failure at school makes them more vulnerable to gang involvement. Immigrant youth also have the highest unemployment rate in Canada. Gangs provide a sense of belonging as well as safety, power and access to money. Although the children of immigrants may be more vulnerable to the lure of gang activity, according to Sgt. Houghton, middle-class Canadian kids are just as likely to join gangs. “Immigrant kids become Canadianized really quickly. They tell their parents ‘I need a $200 pair of shoes to fit in.’ And when we ask kids whose parents give them a $20 allowance each week why they joined a gang they say, ‘I didn’t want a crappy job. I thought selling drugs was a quicker way to make money. I didn’t realize the risks.’ The sad reality is, very few people get rich in gangs.” Like Latoya Rodney, ex-gang member David Carrillo says low self-esteem played a major role in his gang involvement in Canada. Carrillo was abused by two family members. When he arrived in Toronto from Ecuador at age 13,
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