GANG CRIME CAN BE LOCAL

All anyone has to do is listen to the news broadcasts or read a
newspaper and they will see references to gang-related crime.

Is this issue confined to the "big cities," or are rural and smaller
communities affected, too? That is the question I want to discuss.

When people hear the word "gang," several images come to mind, most
of them fuelled by television/ movie images of archetypical criminals.

But that is not always the reality. In many cases, criminal gangs are
loosely associated individuals who come together to form a common
purpose. That common purpose is to make money the quickest way
possible with the least risk and exposure to them.

Not every organized crime group has a "clubhouse" or a ritual means
of gaining entry. All it takes is three main people who facilitate
criminal offenses that would result in a material benefit to them.

The most common criminal enterprise is drugs. The production,
distribution and sale of drugs is the lifeblood of many urban and
rural-based gangs. They want a monopoly on the market, and they will
use whatever means they can to ensure it: thefts, burglaries,
intimidation, threats, violence and even death if it makes good
business sense . . . to them.

Another activity that criminal groups or gangs engage in is the
distribution of counterfeit merchandise, which impacts the local,
provincial and national economies.

If you are a legitimate business owner selling a product, how can you
compete on a level playing field with a competition who plays by no rules?

Human trafficking is another gang-heavy criminal enterprise. This
crime profits on human misery as it entails the recruitment,
transportation and harbouring of persons for the purpose of exploitation.

Most commonly, it means the unfortunate souls at the bottom of the
chain are used as forced slave labour or prostitutes, but neither
term adequately portrays what these people endure at the hands of the
traffickers.

"Well," you might say, "that doesn't happen in a small area like
ours." No? Know anyone who sells or uses drugs, even in a social
setting? These things are not "over the counter" prescriptions.
Someone with a connection to organized crime produced and sold them
to whoever offered them to you.

Did you think that Health Canada inspected the product first? What
exactly do you know about where the stuff came from? What do you know
about the person who offered the drugs?

Do you think you pay high enough insurance rates? As long as
organized crime groups can steal cars and sell them at a lower price
than a bona fide dealer, get used to it. Think about this: what if if
nobody bought the cheaper car, or the drugs, or had a desire to lower
labour costs by using illegal workers?

But that is not realistic, as "vice" has been part of human nature
since the Dead Sea was on the "sick list." But most Canadians are
decent, law-abiding folks, and for them, the best defence against
organized crime is not to turn a blind eye. Ask yourself some questions:

. How does this person have more money than their salary would allow?

. Does this person have a real job?

. Why all the cash?

. How do they afford new "toys"?

Sometimes, there is a perfectly good and reasonable explanation.
Perhaps they work hard at excellent-paying legitimate jobs. But there
can be other factors to consider, such as the following:

. What is their education level? Education (or rather, the lack of
it) and crime seem to go hand in hand, when one considers that the
majority of federal inmates enter the prison system without basic
literacy skills.

. How long have they worked at that job?

So perhaps you are asking yourselves, "Do we see this locally?" The
honest answer is: to some extent, yes. Like all communities across
Canada, we have our issues with drugs and its related crime, like
burglaries, thefts, stolen cars and assaults. The RCMP is working
diligently to gather information and evidence to identify, charge and
prosecute the people who produce and provide drugs in our area.

So what can the average citizen do?

Trust your instincts and remember that we can only be effective
together. Neither you nor the police can resolve this problem acting
or working alone. Breaking silence exposes the criminals. Keeping
silent is what they are counting on.