GANG THREAT IS HERE TO STAY

Police, Public Must Co-Operate To 'Manage' Illegal Activity

Frightening as Calgary's recent gang-related shootings are, it does
not mean Calgary police have lost control of the situation. The
reality is gangs can be managed, but likely never eradicated.

When tensions between rival gangs heat up to the point that members
throw their customary secrecy to the winds and settle a score in
public, innocent bystanders can get hurt and ordinary citizens demand
that police do something.

What that something is, they're not sure, but the perception is that
police were caught unawares and they need to get their act together.
If they had been up to speed, the reasoning goes, none of this would
have escalated to the point it did.

But that isn't necessarily so. Catherine Prowse, a University of
Calgary anthropology professor, gang expert and retired Calgary
police officer, says there's a lot of police work going on that the
public doesn't see.

The labour-intensive, behind-the-scenes activity of intelligence and
undercover work are central factors in fighting gangs. It is crucial
for police to learn the bigger picture of the gangs' structure,
including street-level players, affiliations among gang members, and
their flow as they follow their drug supply network from city to city.

"Intelligence is key. Focusing on the individual has little effect.
Police need to know where members are in the structure of the
organization and follow up. The secondary emphasis is on homicides,"
Prowse says.

Police don't talk of controlling gangs, but rather of managing their
presence. When intelligence work pays off with a big drug bust, gangs
are destabilized and things quiet down for a while. Prowse says the
quiet times are when the police enjoy the most productive
intelligence work. Canadian police fight gangs using an enterprise
system that sees gang structure as key to connecting the dots and
making the arrests. That's because these gangs do not have specific
turfs or wear gang colours. They're extremely mobile and follow their
supply networks.

"The players come and go, but the structure transcends that," Prowse
says. "In Calgary, we have different gangs affiliated with different
organized crime. Some are dealing coke or heroin, some are into human
trafficking. Their importation networks are different, so they
co-exist, but their distribution centres overlap, so they step on
each other's toes occasionally."

Rivalry exists at all levels, down to the street-level traffickers
the gangs use for high-risk activities. Gangs prefer to avoid public
shoot-outs because they draw unwanted attention from police, the
media and the public.

When gangs first began to emerge as a presence in Calgary, police
were reluctant to use the "g" word, Prowse says. In any city, gang
structures are established first and then police must play catch-up
to figure out the structures and make arrests.

Calgarians needn't feel powerless. Prowse says the community is a
huge resource for information on gang activity. In Montreal three
years ago, residents of the gang-infested suburb of St. Michel
reclaimed their neighbourhood by taking back their local parks for
organized activities, forcing the drug dealers out.

Unfortunately, Calgary's economic boom has attracted the seedier side
of society. Law enforcement integration is the best battle strategy,
and Calgary police work with the RCMP, but they need to make the
battle multi-jurisdictional and collaborate with Edmonton and rural
police forces. Police have the necessary financial and manpower
resources to do it, and as Prowse says, the problem in Calgary is
"well within police capability to manage."