I was speaking specifically about the gang problem and I suppose in terms of your question about recruitment.
I'm hoping there is a proceeding or a transcript from the summit that I wasn't able to attend yesterday, because it had a number of ex-gang members talking very fluently about why and how they had joined. One man in particular was making the point that a large number don't want to do that, and that what in fact....
I talked about jobs, literacy, social inclusion, and social services that I still think we pay lip service to. I know this isn't the forum to talk specifically about a particular approach, but a book by Jock Young talks about the blurring of borders, and that there's a sense of inclusion and exclusion operating at the same time in our cities.
The guys and girls who are gang members in parts of Toronto are not immune to the celebrity status we see on television--the ads and all the rest of it--but they are excluded from it. In fact, distributing drugs for somebody else is a good way to at least give yourself a sense that you are participating in the culture. Why don't we take some of the resources that we use to overemphasize...possibly even the gangs and guns approach, and really seriously look at social services, jobs, literacy, and all the rest of it?
I sit on a police community liaison committee in my neighbourhood, and the citizens of my community were upset because somebody was breaking mirrors in the cars on the street. It was as petty as that. The police community mobilization people were there at our very next meeting. Well, broken mirrors.... Target those highly problematic areas, but don't target them from a gangs and guns perspective. Target them in the kinds of ways I have been advocating.