Aboriginal gangs are proliferating across Canada as criminal organizations exploit the intense poverty and squalid conditions that many First Nations youth live in, says a top officer with the RCMP’s aboriginal police division.
The gangs’ stock-in-trade includes drug distribution, prostitution and theft, and they’re only growing more sophisticated, said the RCMP.
“The gangs are brought on by poverty,” said RCMP Sgt. Merle Carpenter, who holds the aboriginal gangs file with the National Aboriginal Policing Services.
“They intimidate by violence and these aboriginal youth are just wanting to belong to somebody.”
While Winnipeg, with its large aboriginal population, is still the epicentre for native gangs, outfits like the Indian Posse, the Manitoba Warriors and the Native Syndicate have spread from coast to coast and into the far North.
“They are certainly increasing in numbers and becoming more sophisticated in how they do business,” said Carpenter, who is a member of the Inuvialuit First Nation in the western arctic.
The gangs are growing through the country’s network of jails, which are acting as hothouses for recruitment and learning the tricks of the trade.
If you’re not a member of a gang when you go to jail, police officials in Manitoba say, you will be when you come out. Many prisoners simply cannot survive jail life without the protection of a gang.
Last week, an aboriginal policy conference in Ottawa heard that aboriginal youth membership in gangs could double in the next 10 years.
Dr. Mark Totten, a sociologist and expert on Canadian street gangs, released a study that found aboriginal gang violence has reached “epidemic levels” in many communities.
Totten said female aboriginals are often traded among gang members and, as part of their initiation, are made to have sex with numerous gang members at the same time.
Observers say the explosive growth can’t be combated unless the federal government steps up and addresses the woeful conditions underlying the startling trend.
“It’s so simple that it’s hard to understand why nothing’s happening,” said Steve Koptie, an aboriginal social worker who spent several years working in the mental health field for 21 reserves in Ontario’s northwest.
“It’s all about education and employment. If we don’t get youth educated and we don’t get them... participating in the workforce we’re going to continue to watch this deterioration.”
Koptie notes there is vast mineral wealth in Canada’s North, such as the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario, which can provide jobs for many now-destitute aboriginals.