GANGS ARE NOT JUST IN THE POOR WINNIPEG NEIGHBORHOODS ANY MORE THEY ARE IN ALL WINNIPEG HIGH SCHOOLS

XXX was 13 when he bought his first handgun. He took it to a Winnipeg school tucked in to the back of his pants. Soon he was keeping an AK-47 hidden in a heating vent at home. “Even back then, I was skipping classes and doing scores. Every time I had to report back to the youth correctional centre, I always had money and dope on me. Sometimes, if I had to drive there, I stole a car,” XXX says. Gangs are a fact of life in many cities today. But that wasn't always the case. An academic study found almost no mention of gangs in Winnipeg from the demise of the Dew Drop Gang around 1950 until the mid-1980s, just before the dawn of the Winnipeg's major gangs: As the origins show, there was an influence from the era's African-American gang images . But mainly it was the situation of urban populations, which included people who were overwhelmingly poor, with significant drug, alcohol and domestic violence problems. The children of that generation formed gangs, surrogate families, to fill the void. THESE STATISTICS ARE NOT NO LONGER ACURATE AS MY SON WENT TO SCHOOL IN WHAT ARE CONSIDERED 3 WEALTHY SCHOOLS......AND HAD A STABLE HOME. MY SON WAS NOT A GANG MEMBER OR WANNA BE THUG. HE WAS A YOUNG MAN THAT WAS SO PROUD TO WEAR THE DIRT HE EARNED ON HIS CLOTHS FROM HIS DAYS WORK, HE HAD JUST BEEN GIVEN A DAY OFF WORK AND WAS GOING TO CABELA'S.