Cst. Al Devolin
Thomas Hobbes famously described life as “nasty, brutish and short.” The seventeenth century English philosopher could easily have been talking about life in a modern Calgary gang. For youths attracted to gang life, violence, drug abuse and addiction, prison are standard fare.
The average age of murdered gang members is 20, young men like Sanjeev Mann, 22, a member of the FOB Killers, who died New Years Day along with his associate, Aaron Bendle, 21, gunned down by rival gang members.
In Calgary, the job of counteracting the pull of gang life falls to the small unit called Youth At Risk Development (YARD), a community-based program designed to identify youth between 10 and 17 who are risk of become gang members.
The YARD program has developed several screening tools to assess the risk of a youth joining a gang. This involves sitting down with the child and the family to fill in a detailed questionnaire that helps the YARD worker determine their strengths and weakness, and how those will affect their vulnerability to gang recruitment.
Cst. Al Devolin discusses building relationship with the family of youth at risk
“Then we work at bolstering the strengths, addressing the weaknesses, keeping them connected to the community,” said Cst. Devolin.
He emphasizes that the four YARD workers, two Calgary police officers and two social workers, act as conduits to already existing community resources, including employment readiness, counseling and other support services. YARD workers often act as advocates with the youth’s school, appearing at suspension hearings or meeting with the principal to discuss academic program or lack thereof.
The YARD program tries to identify youth at risk of gang recruitment as early as possible. The younger the child, the more likely prevention strategies will be successful in keeping the child from joining a gang.
“Once they’ve been indoctrinated and are affiliated with gang members, or they have become full-fledged gang members, then it’s more of an intervention strategy.
Gang membership in the organizations monitored by the Calgary Police gang unit numbers between 350 and 400 people. A small percentage of that number is female.
Daphne Buffett, social work advocate
“Whether it’s male or female, our culture glamorizes gang involvement. I think there’s an attraction to gang lifestyle in the media, but also there’s a sense of family, a sense of belonging. For kids who are missing that elsewhere, they’re very attracted to joining a gang,” said Ms. Buffett, a social work advocate with YARD.
“For girls who are involved in gangs there’s a lot more sexualized behavior, mistreatment in terms of being female and what they’re used for within the gang. Every human needs a sense of belonging. For these kids, gang life gives them that sense of belonging.
“We don’t see a lot of gang-related violence toward females. It’s mostly men being violent toward men. We do have gang members who are women, but they probably represent less than one per cent of the total gang members,” said Cst. Devolin. “Some of them function at a very high level, just as high as the men.”
Daphne Buffett discusses risk factors for youths in danger of joining a gang
Cst. Devolin and Ms. Buffett are cautious about labeling kids who have come through the YARD program as successes or failures. Some youths resist the lure of gang life. Others may not become gang members, but continue a life of petty crime, low-level drug dealing and stealing. Some do join gangs, but the YARD program continues to have a positive impact on their life.
“If the program wasn’t in existence we wouldn’t have helped the kids we have helped. And I have to think that even the kids we weren’t able to reach we did have an impact on them at some level,” Cst. Devolin says.
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