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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Little solutions go a long way in the Point
Society is the loser when youngsters choose gangs
Sel Burrows believes recreation can keep Point Douglas kids out of gangs. (WAYNE GLOWACKI/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)
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The awful truth was driven home about halfway through my tour of North Point Douglas.
It was just over a year ago, and I was trying to put together a longer feature article on the troubled inner-city community. It was a great yarn, in large part because the people of the Point had started to take back their community from the purveyors of drugs, prostitution and violence. Point Douglas was not rid of those problems, but the community had evolved beyond a well-earned stereotype.
There was no doubt "the Point" had come a long way. However, there was still a lingering despondency.
With community activist Sel Burrows at my side, I visited the Point Douglas Community Centre. The centre was a beehive of activity with dozens of after-school kids engaged in all manner of after-school activities. I talked to staff about all the things they were doing to give kids of all ages an alternative to gangs, drugs and violence.
The staff was, at that time, concerned about their ability to field a basketball team for the fall. Basketball had been a major draw, but the program was threatened because they were having trouble finding a coach. In large part, this is because "coaching" basketball in the Point is just as much about social work as it is dribbling and shooting.
The staff lamented that whenever they asked for support for basketball, they were offered jerseys and balls. That may work in a suburban community centre, but it's not enough in core neighbourhoods like this.
What they needed, the staff said, was paid professional recreation staff that would not only oversee on-court activities, but take an active interest in the lives of the kids. And perhaps a van so the coaches could pick up players to get them to games and practices.
The fact is, too many parents either don't care or actively discourage their children from getting involved. So there is no one to get them early before school for practice or pick them up after the game.
What were the chances of getting paid recreation staff and a van? They just shook their heads. The city and province were supportive as long as that support came in a bag or box from Wal-Mart. But paid staff? A vehicle? Not in a million years.
There is a special kind of anger that builds in communities where people can see the solution to a problem but they can't get anyone to listen to them. That anger eventually evolves into despondency, and then apathy, when year after year no progress is made.
I haven't met a politician at any level of government that thinks education and youth recreation isn't important. I have met many politicians who didn't have a clue about how to actually deliver either commodity to the most troubled children.
Youth gangs, and the related social diseases that accompany a child's descent into that lifestyle, are a constant concern for people who live in core-area neighbourhoods.
We debate solutions but as a society, we rarely show the commitment to taking care of the little things. We want big, broad, convenient solutions like longer prison sentences and more police presence. We make token investments in education and recreation, but not enough to meet the size of the problem.
The horrible fact is we'd rather debate the appropriateness of prison sentences than build a system to prevent kids from choosing a gang lifestyle. As a society, we can spend all day shaking our heads in bitter disappointment when every bad-seed teenager isn't sent to adult prison for a graduate course in violence and crime.
We are more than comfortable judging those families who cannot control their children, resolved that we will not do for them that which they cannot do for themselves.
Unfortunately, teenage sociopaths no longer fear police and prisons. The worst gangbangers celebrate their run-ins with the law and consider jail time to be a badge of honour. Once they choose this life, the battle is lost.
Gangs prosper because they offer children something society stole from them a long time ago: a sense of belonging.
Punishment is a necessary reality but shouldn't we expect that society invests as much of its time and money in prevention as it does in punishment? Longer prison sentences keep the worst offenders off the streets for longer stretches of time. But that is a pathetic tourniquet for such a gaping wound.
So, for the meantime, we will rant about harsher sentences and dismiss obvious solutions as too costly. And then we will all bear witness to the dawn of a new age of violence and mayhem.
Point Douglas activist Sel Burrows always puts a quote a the bottom of his frequent emails to the media: If there are no teams, they will join a gang.
It seems so obvious.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 24, 2009 A4
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