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Article about "how B.C.'s middle-class gangs are unlike any other in North America"

"The unusual suspects: How B.C.'s middle-class gangs are unlike any other in North America"

Quote:

Many gangsters driven by desire to belong, to be protected or to emulate gang lifestyle, say police, experts

At the end of a tranquil cul-de-sac in a pleasant neighbourhood, a tall stucco house overlooks a well-kept lawn and lush flower beds.

The home is in the Metro Vancouver city of Surrey, where the average price of a detached property is $1.1 million.

Before an officer from the RCMP's gang enforcement unit knocks on the door to conduct a curfew check, he notes that the alleged gang boss didn't purchase the home with drug profits. This is his family's house, where he grew up and still lives in his mid-20s.

"Gangs in Chicago and other U.S. cities, they're usually geographically based. They keep a watch of the block, or they're a bunch of new immigrants to a country. It becomes a unity thing, like survival. These kids don't have that issue,'' Const. Ryan Schwerdfeger says.

"Some may be new immigrants to Canada, but their parents sold property back home and they live in $1 million-plus homes and their parents buy them whatever car they want.''

Families gather in Abbotsford to warn others of gang violence
Police officers say the gang conflict in British Columbia's Lower Mainland is unlike any other in North America.

Many young members come from middle- to upper-class homes. They aren't driven by poverty, but instead by their desire to belong, to be protected or to emulate the gangster lifestyle flashed by other teens on social media. Some become trapped in gangs once they join, while others just meet the wrong friends and find themselves caught in the crosshairs.

Police are struggling to contain the deadly gunfire, and families are left broken and confused.

In fact, the situation is so different in B.C. that some say many of the groups toting guns and dealing drugs are not really "gangs'' at all. But to end the violence, experts say, it must be understood why kids are jumping into the fray — and why it's so hard for them to leave.

Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...rrey-1.5259790

Normally, money and social problems are directly connected, that's why they call them "socioeconomic issues". Being poor puts people at risk of falling into traps that in turn make them poorer, in a vicious cycle. Being affluent makes life more stable and makes it easier for people to help their children become successful, so privilege self-reinforcing too.

But under extreme circumstances it seems like the two can become detached?

Vancouver strikes me as a place poisoned by too much money. It was a working class port city and then overnight due to a real estate boom you had all these young people with unearned inherited riches. It attracts all these immigrant groups who arrived loaded with cash and their kids are spoiled rotten. They have lots of cash to blow on drugs, fast cars, and zero boundaries. The sky-high inequality makes the poor more desperate and angry.

Mo money mo problems.

Basically these guys have no life.

So, wannabe posers?

Those idiots have been around for decades.

In places with actual gang-bangers, they don't get much traction, for obvious reasons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clD_HL17t94

This thread made me think of Malibu's Most Wanted.

"I'm from Burnaby, G. Straight up gangsta. Drive through my hood by Riverway Golf Course and I'll cap you, beotch!"

Actually no joke - regardless of gang creds, crimes small (auto theft thro the roof) and large (gangs n drugs), paradise city is getting nasty.

So, in other words... Just plain, garden-variety sociopaths? Gosh, who knew Canada would get the Purge before we did?