A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY FOR FIGHTING GANGS AND ORGANIZED CRIME

It Takes A Sustained Commitment From The Police, Crown, Courts,
Community And Government

Special To The Sun

Columnist Ian Mulgrew is correct in asking tough questions about our
strategies for battling organized crime.

As police officers in Metro Vancouver, we ask those same questions
ourselves.

In looking across the continent at jurisdictions and regions with
similar issues of gang violence, we see no easy or obvious solutions.

The challenges we face in the Lower Mainland are well documented. The
drug trade is huge and is geared for production and export. It is big
business, fuelled by greed and supported by violence.

Illegal firearms are readily available because of our proximity to the
American border and, as we are now finding, an increasing trade in the
diversion of legally imported firearms to gun traffickers.

Police, Crown prosecutors and the judicial system are stretched thin
by caseload, a multitude of priorities, and the ever-increasing
complexity of the law.

The experience of jurisdictions across North America has shown that
strategies to effectively address gang violence have to be long-term,
multi-layered and intelligence-led.

Long-term community strategies that focus on youth and street level
gangs are effective in targeting and diverting youth away from such
gangs.

There are a number of successes in British Columbia. For example the
Indo-Canadian community has had a substantial impact in reducing the
rate of young Indo-Canadian men killed by gang violence through
commitment to community involvement, police partnerships, education
and intervention.

Community-police initiatives such as BarWatch also carry promise in
reducing the violence and increasing public safety.

Long-term, focused, intensive and resource-heavy investigations
coupled with timely intelligence sharing are required to target and
prosecute the more sophisticated, high-level and most dangerous groups.

The success of the region's major crime units, B.C.'s Integrated Gang
Task Force and Crown prosecutors in investigating and vigorously
prosecuting kidnappings has led to what appears to be a dramatic
decrease in these offences.

Over the past four years the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team
and other homicide teams in Metro Vancouver have been successful in
laying criminal charges against more than 50 people for a number of
gang/organized crime related homicides. (This does not include the
large number still under active investigation.)

The problems are many: These types of files are difficult, costly and
resource-intensive. They often consume police teams for up to a year
or more on any one investigation and many years afterwards with
prosecutions.

Are we going to be successful on every file? No. But I can tell you,
based on my knowledge of the competent and dedicated homicide
investigators in this province, that it will not be due to lack of
commitment and effort on the part of the police.

Because of improved intelligence and intelligence-sharing practices,
we know that we have been successful in preventing a number of
homicides. We are frequently gaining intelligence that alerts us to a
planned "hit."

In most cases concerns for public safety, (including the safety of the
gang members) does not allow us the time to develop enough evidence to
charge the individuals with conspiracy to commit murder. However, the
intelligence does provide us with the ability to take some form of
disruption action or, at the very least warn the groups involved, and
then flood them with police attention to stop the planned violence.

Despite the best efforts of the police to conduct enforcement on the
known violent gangs, there are not enough investigation teams to
target all of them at one time. Prioritization is necessary and is
based on an assessment of the risk to our communities; however, it is
not unusual to find that while one high-risk gang is being targeted,
another high-risk group is becoming equally active.

Short-term, high-profile enforcement is a necessary third component to
our strategies in combating gang violence.

Uniform teams that conduct enforcement on known violent crime groups,
based on strategies learned from Vancouver Police Department firearms
interdiction teams and similar successful Lower Mainland police
initiatives, are having an effect.

The uniform teams conduct roving patrols throughout the Lower Mainland
and provide a high visibility police presence at locations where
intelligence indicates these groups are going to congregate, such as
bars and clubs.

The teams are on the lookout for known gang members and conduct
targeted enforcement as appropriate, such as the enforcement of bail
and probation conditions, with the goal of suppressing and disrupting
the potential for violence.

Are we having an impact on gang violence?

The reality of combating gangs and gang violence is that it takes a
combined and sustained commitment from the police, Crown, courts,
community and government.

I believe that our strategies are effective and are going to have
lasting impact on the violence that affects all of us.

However, we should not be under the illusion that the issue of gangs
and gang violence will be resolved overnight. We still have a long way
to go.

Supt. John Robin heads British Columbia's Integrated Gang Task Force.