Gangs of Toronto: Troubled Youths or Mafia

I talked about Toronto's gang problem a couple years back during the so called "summer of the gun" in 2005. The whole thing has remained a major problem facing the city and Canada at large as violence seems to spill outwards into the suburbs and even rural communities. There have been numerous efforts to curb the violence but all have failed. In this article, I'll look at why this is.

Imagine you're Don Michael Corleone. You've grown up around crime and after years of resisting you decide to join the family business. The government's response to you doing this is to build more football pitches. After all, Italians love football (soccer) and so more places for them to play will keep them out of trouble. Do you honestly think Don Michael is doing to give up the family business now that he has a place to kick a ball around? What if there were more honest work though. Do you think Johnny Tightlips is going to give up his job at the union racket now that he can work at a near by McDonalds for $7 an hour? Yeah right.

Isn't this the same philosophy Toronto socialists are using to combat black gangs in the city? I know if I were the leader of the local Crips or Bloods, I'd feel a little insulted by it. Do they really think that these people are going to give up joining gangs because they build a basketball court, or that they'll stop dealing drugs for $2000 a day to make $70 a day at the local fast food joint? I think that's even a little racist since they're assuming that all blacks love basketball. Why don't they just open up some watermelon stands and a few KFCs in the area? Maybe that will work too.

The mistake Toronto's socialist leadership make is assuming that the city's gangs are simply loose organizations of thugs who became such because they're troubled youths. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are mafias. Any black gang in Jane and Finch is just as highly organized as the Gambinos. They know the business and they know they can make big bucks, especially with the drug and prostitution rackets. The structure is complex and widespread from smuggling schemes at Pearson to extortion, robbery, and small scale terrorism. The violence itself comes from disputes between the different "families", just as it did in Chicago back in the 1920s. Youths join the gangs because they know they can make more money than doing any honest job. They don't care about the risks associated with it. Imagine $2000 for simply working a couple hours an evening selling crack. You're armed, you get the latest wheels, and most importantly, you're feared and respected. It's a mighty tempting prospect for any of us. The reason most of us don't do it is we stick to our moral system or we fear getting caught. That's not the case in these gangs. With the way the legal system is, gang crimes are not harshly punished or the race card is pulled and they get off on a technicality. Just like a mafia don. They're released and the cycle continues. They are neither poor, nor oppressed, nor troubled. They are simply bad people.

I don't really know how to solve this problem, but I do know that people need to start seeing it for what it actually is before we can even talk solutions. We keep fooling ourselves, especially with mothers' pleas on how such a good boy Shaquan was before he was shot. Chances are the mother knows about or is part of the family too. The issue is not about race. Its not a black issue or a white issue. It's a justice issue. Until we start treating them like the mafias they are and not as if they're troubled youths, this problem is just going to continue.