OTTAWA ANNOUNCES $3.4 MILLION TO KEEP REGION'S YOUTH OUT OF GANGS

CAMBRIDGE - Ottawa says it will pay $3.4 million for a program to help
young people get out of criminal gangs and stay out of them in the
first place.

The money funds a new, co-operative project by the Waterloo Region
Crime Prevention Council for three-and-a-half years.

"The idea is to help young people at risk," said federal science
minister and Cambridge MP Gary Goodyear during a press conference at
Waterloo Regional Police Headquarters in Cambridge on Thursday "These
are programs that are proven to work."

The "gang prevention initiative" will work in parallel with the
regional police guns and gangs unit.

Community youth support agencies like Lutherwood, Roof and the John
Howard Society will co-ordinate programs offering life skills and
employment training, along with substance abuse counseling to help
young people.

The gang prevention initiative has a goal of helping 100 young people
out of gangs and into productive, law-abiding lives, said Christiane
Sadeler, executive director of the crime prevention council.

That won't be easy, because young people join gangs seeking the family
type of support they never found before, or the money they could never
earn before.

"Do you want to work a minimum wage job making burgers when you can
make significantly more money running drugs?"

Nobody expects success with every troubled youth who voluntarily joins
the program, said John Bilton, executive director of the John Howard
Society of Waterloo-Wellington.

“It’s going to be very difficult to move kids out of gangs. We have give
them more than they’re getting with gangs.”

Since leaving a gang can be is dangerous, perhaps the program will have
to move some former members to a place of safety for a while. Bilton is
also a proponent of paying for tattoo removal.

“I would really be very strongly in favour of it… tattooing is a sign of
gang membership.”

He’s worked in the criminal justice counseling system for 35 years –
including six years inside prison walls – and says jails are a poor way to
protect the community. Criminals simply learn to be better criminals the
more time they spend behind bars.

It’s a better investment to help young people stay away from crime, not
jail them later, Bilton said.

“We’re not going to make 100 percent success. We’re naïve to think we could.
We want to make an impact. We want to make the community safer.”