Gangs and Girls by Michel Dorais & Patrice Corriveau

Author:Michel Dorais & Patrice Corriveau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC000000
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: 2009-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

Why Is It So Difficult to Dismantle Juvenile Prostitution Rings?

Prostituting minors is a high-risk activity. Street gangs know this all too well, especially after the crackdowns in recent years. Some consider it a matter of basic precaution to move full-time prostituted girls to another city, where they will not be recognized by relatives or neighbours and cannot get in touch with them in a situation of distress. In Quebec, moving a young francophone to an English-speaking region further isolates and destabilizes her.

Another factor hindering the fight against juvenile prostitution is that street gangs operate for the most part as relatively autonomous cells – a bit like terrorist cells – and not according to a formal hierarchy as is typical of criminal biker gangs or mafias. It is harder to identify who does what and who controls whom. Each gang member has as many as a dozen girls under his responsibility. The gang itself is not “responsible” for the acts – only one (or two or three) of its members are. Still, the pimp receives help from his associates or from members of other criminal organizations. He needs them to watch or house the girl, or to put her to work in escort agencies or strip bars far from her home. It takes a number of people to oversee the prostitution of one girl, so it is difficult, even for the girl in question, to know who exactly is profiting from her work. For example, a pimp may tell a girl that he is taking her to a city where he has “sold” her, but how can she verify the truth of this or find out whether most of the money is still going to the same person? Some young women who have been reduced to sex slaves simply no longer know to whom they “belong”– all they know is that they must keep bringing in the money.

The shifting composition of gangs and their activities makes police work particularly complex. Due to the young age of their members and, in some cases, their ethnic origin, gangs are more difficult to infiltrate than traditional criminal organizations. Moreover, it is easier for them to terrorize girls and their friends and relatives so that their activities remain a secret.

Finally, and most regrettably, the extent and even the existence of juvenile prostitution are often questioned or trivialized. There is a crying lack of awareness on the part of social workers and police officers at all levels of the hierarchy as well as on the part of Crown prosecutors and judges. As many of our respondents suggested, this gap must be filled with continuing education, especially given how diverse and complex street gangs and their pimping activities may be. They will carry on with those activities, even if we close our eyes to the problem. And, since secrecy is their main asset, acknowledging their existence and understanding how they operate can only be disadvantageous to them.

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