The City of Greater Sudbury does not at this time have a problem with street gangs but warning signs suggest gangs are “casing” our community.

Police first noticed a disturbing trend of out-of-town drug dealers making stops in Greater Sudbury to sell their drugs. Through information sharing with other police services in Ontario many of these dealers were identified as belonging to street gangs — the vast majority from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

It would appear that the drug dealers find Greater Sudbury to be an easy market for their wares mainly because of the absence of anti-gang initiatives and the absence of organized rival gangs.

History has proven that it is easier to be proactive; to make a community unappealing to gangs than it is to rid the area of them once they have established themselves.

Local Police want our community to get involved; to take steps to prevent gangs from taking root here.

The first step in letting gangs know we don’t want them here is to enforce the law and let the gangs know there are risks associated with coming to our community and breaking the law. The Greater Sudbury Police Service has done that in a big way.

Greater Sudbury Police began taking note of the people they were arresting in 2007 and 2008. They noticed that some of the people were affiliated with gangs from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Through the efforts of the “Gangs and Guns Task Force” created in 2008, 166 people were charged with Criminal Code and Controlled Drug and Substance Act (CDSA) charges, 30 individuals were arrested on outstanding warrants, 213 Criminal Code charges and 342 CDSA charges were laid, three restricted weapons and one stolen firearm were seized (all in the first year). Twelve of the people arrested as part of this sting were members of street gangs, mostly operating out of the GTA.

Enforcement is only the first step in the plan. 

The next step is to educate the community and engage citizens in initiatives to help shield our community from the very real danger of gangs setting up shop locally.

It has been proven that youth, particularly those living in poverty, those out of school and/or those living on the streets are the most vulnerable to the tactics used by gang-affiliated drug dealers from larger centres.  Street gangs target “disenfranchised” youths — kids who have poor support at home, at school, don’t get along well with other kids, are bullied, and are wanting to belong to something. Ultimately, it comes down to kids having the support in their personal lives, social lives, and educational lives to be able to resist the temptation provided by street gangs.

It is therefore important that locally, we provide our youths with alternative choices. Generally, those alternative choices don’t come from police services; they come from community and social partners.

As part of this second phase of the initiative, the Greater Sudbury Police Service organized two public presentations on street gangs called “Gangs Are Here - A Community Action Plan.”  The information sessions were designed to inform community members about the problems of street gangs in urban centres such as New York, Detroit, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Thunder Bay and what can be done to avoid having these gangs take root in Greater Sudbury.

On February 24th at the Sheridan Auditorium of Sudbury Secondary School guest speaker Ron “Cook” Barrett, a street-gang specialist from the Albany N.Y. Police Department spoke to a full house of interested citizens.  “Cook” has been involved with inner-city kids for more than 23 years and is a specialist in anti street-gang education. He started the Capital Region Gang Prevention Program and Gang Prevention Centre and teaches police, educators and members of the public how to spot and counteract street gangs. Cook works closely with the Toronto Police Service and feels strongly that we have the power to shield our community from gangs setting up shop locally.

On February 25th, Greater Sudbury Police Service hosted a full-day workshop in the Heritage Hall at the Caruso Club. In addition to a more detailed presentation by Cook Barrett, Clayton Thomas-Muller, from Pukatawagan in northern Manitoba, a specialist in gang activity spoke. Attendees then spent the balance of the day developing ideas for local initiatives.