Girls in gangs

Women taking on greater role in Metro Vancouver gangs


BY RAFE ARNOTT, CANWEST NEWS SERVICEJANUARY 8, 2010


METRO VANCOUVER - Lower Mainland gangs like the Red Scorpions, Independent Soldiers and the UN gang are recruiting women into their hierarchies, say police.

Const. Ian MacDonald with the Abbotsford Police Department said with fewer trusted foot soldiers to choose from following a year of steady organized crime arrests, he has seen a marked increase in the number of women involved in gang-related criminal activity.

"These gangs have to ensure that feeder stream, and they have to go to people they consider known and loyal to them," he said.

Thinning of the gang ranks through arrests, jail sentences and murder is contributing to the phenomenon. Any aversion to having women in key integral roles in the organizations is a thing of the past, he added.

"They will go with females who have been somehow linked to their organization, and that's a change," he said.

"Absolutely true," said University of the Fraser Valley criminology professor Darryl Plecas. The upward trend of women in crime is not a blip on the radar, he said.

"The increase of criminals who are women has increased fairly steadily for the last 20 years. It's probably one in five [arrests]," he said.

Plecas said traditionally the role of women in gangs has not been a central one, but seeing them involved more intrinsically might not be all bad.

"In one sense it's a good sign because [gangs] are running out of people. This [problem of male recruits] is just going to grow exponentially. If you look at the pool of people who they have the closest and most trusting associations with, it would of course be women, girlfriends and that kind of thing," he said.

Plecas said an increased involvement of women in organized crime is consistent with an increased number of female criminals across the board.

"But it's a definite shift in their roles, " he said, adding that if a breadwinner boyfriend is arrested it behooves the girlfriend to step into his shoes because "[she could] suffer a decline in lifestyle if he's out of the picture."

Sgt. Shinder Kirk with the RCMP's Integrated Gang Task Force said women have always been involved in gangs, but they're just not in the public's eye.

"Have they taken leadership roles? Certainly behind the scenes as opposed to up front," he said.

Citing several recent homicides, Kirk said, "[Women's] participation is certainly on the increase and the paradigm where women were off-limits in terms of violence or any sort of retaliatory action has shifted completely."

MacDonald said any female who is involved with gangsters has knowledge of the business, is trustworthy in the gang's assessment and is likely to become an involved participant in those gangs.

"From the standpoint of a criminal organization, if they're going to hire someone to drive a car across the [border] and pick up cargo, they will go with someone they trust.

"They're not going to straddle that male/female line and say 'It has to be a guy.' They will go where they think the task can be executed with highest degree of success," said MacDonald.

"If there's money to be made, [women] are feeling — and rightly so — as entitled to make the money as their male partner," he said.

"Economics is changing some of the rules."

Abbotsford Times

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