There has been much fuss made recently about the increase in youth gang violence across Canada. You hear about Asian gangs in B.C. and gun violence with gangs in Toronto. What about in our own backyard?

Here, we have a youth gang problem and we need to look no further than our own society to see what has created the problem. In Winnipeg the majority of those in gangs are aboriginal. This makes sense, since the main reason that people join gangs is because their marginalization is such that they lack access to the “normal” ways of attaining power, prestige and in some cases, love.

Traditionally, those who join gangs are of a minority race, have lower social status, are poorer economically and face discrimination, not to mention unequal life opportunities. Numerous gang members also come from single-parent households and have faced abuse, either through physical violence or neglect. Gangs give these kids a sense of family, belonging and power, something that society has taken away from them through marginalization.

Pursuing a criminal justice degree has allowed me numerous opportunities to work in institutions and get to know what these kids are really like. This summer I was fortunate enough to work on an evaluation of an intensive supervision youth gang probation unit named Spotlight. In doing so, I met numerous gang members.

The Spotlight evaluation conducted 20 interviews with current and former youth gang members. We heard almost identical responses about discrimination, the inability to do well in school, family dysfunction and addiction. Most of these kids expressed a strong desire to get out of the gang, they just didn’t see any way to do it. They are not the “thugs” and “punks” that the headlines of the Winnipeg Sun would like you to believe.

Yes, these kids are sometimes responsible for vicious acts, and they don’t deny that; but when you sit down and actually talk to them you can see why they have found themselves in the situations they now face.

The power imbalance in our society is the main barrier to these kids ever becoming what they really want to be. When you come from a home where your father is in a gang, your mother is addicted to crack or your siblings are in gangs or dead, it’s understandable that these kids feel helpless in joining a gang. They don’t have the same opportunities that, say, privileged middle-class white kids have had to go to school, to study and, in some cases, to have food on the table at dinner time.

I’m not excusing gang violence or saying that it’s not something we should condemn – it absolutely is. But we need to understand why gangs exist if we can ever hope to deal successfully with them.

It is impossible to stop the recruitment of gangs when entire family systems are involved in them. Unless we begin taking steps to eradicate inner-city poverty and systemic racism, nothing will change. Gangs will continue to exist until society wants to deal with the underlying issues and the systemic discrimination that occur throughout the country and in our own backyard.

Melanie Murchison is a criminal justice student at the University of Winnipeg.

Published in Volume 64, Number 11 of The Uniter (November 12, 2009)