GETTING A GRIP ON GANG VIOLENCE

Creation of a regional police force would go a long way towards
eliminating the cracks gang members slip through

Vancouver Sun Two essential principles of our justice system are the
presumption of innocence; that is, a suspect is assumed to be
innocent until proven guilty of an offence; and habeas corpus, a
judicial mandate requiring that prisoners be presented to the court
to determine whether the government has the right to continue detaining them.

Sometimes it appears that in upholding these principles we put the
interests of the criminal ahead of the common good. Take the case of
notorious gangsters, brothers Jamie and Jarrod Bacon, charged last
May with numerous gun and drug charges and released on bail. Jamie
narrowly escaped an attempt on his life at a busy Abbotsford
intersection two weeks ago and it's only by luck that bystanders were
not killed or wounded in the barrage of gunfire.

Within those two weeks, there were four shootings in six days. On
Tuesday evening, there were two more slayings, one in Surrey and the
other in Coquitlam.

Two uninvolved men were killed last October in a gangland massacre in
Surrey that also claimed four gangsters. Police suspect the six were
killed by members of the Red Scorpion gang, to which the Bacon
brothers are linked. Abbotsford police chief Bob Rich told a public
forum on Monday that his officers are doing everything they can to
protect the public from gangsters targeting the Bacon brothers,
including staking out their family home, having their leased cars
repossessed and urging restaurants, clubs, gyms and community centres
to bar them entry.

The one thing they can't do is lock them up. Rich said the court has
refused to revoke bail, but police will try again to get that
decision reversed. Until these men are convicted of a crime, they are
innocent, and unless police can persuade the court they are flight
risks or pose a risk to public safety, they must be released.

That might not fill the public with confidence, but it doesn't mean
that there is nothing we can do to address, and ultimately reduce,
organized crime. Indeed, we can help to bring things under control
through changes to legislation, social programs and the structure of
our police forces.

Efforts to implement anti-gang legislation -- which typically
addresses the matter of acting on behalf of a criminal organization
- -- have received a rough ride in the few years they've existed. But
they're not dead yet, and, assuming they withstand further legal
challenges, might still prove beneficial.

The same can't be said for drug laws, which have proved to be an
enormous boon to organized crime. Eliminating the financial reward of
drug trafficking through decriminalization or outright legalization
would not eliminate organized crime, but would seriously harm the
primary business of gangs, as would reducing the demand for drugs
through treatment and social support.

This reveals that legislation is not some magic elixir that always
helps to prevent crime. This is important to remember when we hear
calls for tougher laws, as we often do during outbreaks of gang
violence. Currently, anyone convicted of murder already receives an
automatic life sentence, which means that we can't make the penalties
any stronger, short of reinstituting capital punishment.

Yet gangsters by and large seem undeterred by these stiff sentences.
And there's a simple reason for that: Many gangsters don't believe
they'll be caught, even if they murder someone. And they're right.

In B.C., just 39 per cent of gang-related killings were solved by
police in 2006, compared with 68 per cent of non-gang homicides,
according to Statistics Canada.

Moreover, homicides of gang members take six months to solve -- in
those few cases where they apprehend culprits -- while 70 per cent of
all homicides are solved within a week.

This means that one of the most important deterrents -- the
likelihood of apprehension -- is all but absent in the case of gang
violence. And of course gangsters need not worry about stiff
sentences if they never see the inside of a courtroom.

There are many reasons for this failure to apprehend gangsters,
including the fact that gangland killings are often carefully
orchestrated, and witnesses often refuse to speak to police out of
fear for their safety.

But the structure of police forces themselves appears to be a serious
impediment to dealing with gang violence.

When dealing with organized crime, this is a recipe for failure,
since gangsters recognize no geographical boundaries. And a lack of
information-sharing and communication across different police forces
plays directly into gangsters' hands.

Certainly, the forces share information in investigating cases, and
the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team links the municipal forces
with each other and with the RCMP detachments. Yet this concerns
crimes after they occur.

Preventing crimes by suppressing gang activities is another matter
entirely, and is extremely difficult to accomplish unless there
exists extensive integration. And the best way to ensure that level
of integration is through the creation of a regional police force.

Various mayors, police chiefs, the public, and now the province have
either advocated the development of a regional force or at least said
it is worth considering. Indeed it is, and with what's been happening
in the Lower Mainland recently, authorities must take immediate steps
to make a regional force a reality.

In addition to a regional force, there are other preventive measures
that take things back a step further -- ones that stop kids from ever
getting involved in gang life, such as the federal Youth Gang
Prevention Initiative and the Surrey Wrap Team. All levels of
government need to ensure that there is sufficient funding for such
initiatives, since in the long run they offer the best hope of making
gang violence history.

It's evident, then, that despite the seeming intractability of gang
violence, we are aware of things that work to curtail this continuing
scourge. All that is required now is the political will to implement
the measures that can make a real difference to people's lives.
Because it is our very lives that are at stake.