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Staying One Step Ahead of Organized Crime

Safety and Security - Inside CSC Institutions

BY Bill Rankin, Communications Officer, Communications and Citizen Engagement Sector

Photo:Bill Rankin

Experts will tell you that organized crime doesn’t spring from any particular country or culture; it’s a culture all its own, a way of life driven by a need for profit and power, two appetites that cross both ethnic and sociological lines. Today there is an intricate web of organized crime groups operating in Canada — traditional, eastern European, Asian and Aboriginal gangs, outlaw motorcycle gangs, Colombian cartels, and others with business connections that span the globe. Organized crime is not a new phenomenon in Canada but its complexity and level of sophistication have dramatically increased over the past two decades.

A High Price to Pay

Ordinary citizens may shrug their shoulders and think they are unaffected by organized crime as long as they are not directly threatened or do not accidentally stray into the crossfire of street gangs’ turf wars. But the director of CSC’s Preventive Security and Intelligence Division will tell you that the facts are otherwise.

“Organized crime operates on three different levels. The first is highly visible: the stabbings and drive-by shootings — settling of accounts between rival gangs, the street-corner drug dealers, and the sex trade that infiltrates respectable neighbourhoods. These are the activities that provoke a strong reaction in the community: concern and fear that crime is out of control. The second level involves the unseen profits of organized crime and how these funds are concealed through money laundering techniques that drain the Canadian economy. The third and most troubling level is reinvestment of laundered money into legitimate businesses, allowing criminals to seize even more power, more profits, and entrench themselves in normal society, masquerading as honest citizens.”

Many criminal organizations that have undergone rapid expansion over the past 20 years gloss over their transformation into global enterprises and try to persuade the media and the public that they remain unchanged from the 1970s and ’80s. But every Canadian — from the suburban hockey mom to the Bay Street broker — pays a high price for their growth not only in street crime but through deteriorating health caused by the illicit drug trade, increased incidences of fraud, and higher insurance premiums, to name just a few.

An Ongoing Threat

Organized crime groups value their privacy; their very existence is jeopardized by exposure. Much of their operations are well hidden, and any clues that rise to the surface are valuable and must be analyzed. When gang members are convicted of crimes and sent to federal institutions, it is a unique opportunity for front-line staff to report on their activities and interactions, gain an understanding of how they operate and share findings with partners in law enforcement. It’s vital because organized criminal groups pose a serious and ongoing threat not only to the community but also to the safety and security of CSC institutions.

Incarcerated gang members — estimated by CSC Research Branch at approximately 14 percent of the total federal inmate population at intake — try to pursue their illicit activities and maintain their ties with the outside world. Typically, they seize opportunities that will give them the leverage needed to reach their own goals, using violence and intimidation as their tools. They try to undercut other inmates’ desire to reform, discourage fellow members from breaking ties with their organization and intimidate unaffiliated inmates so they bow to the gangs’ priorities. The links between these offenders, violence and drugs within federal institutions are undisputed and pervasive.

Effective Strategies on the Front Lines

How does CSC staff combat this situation? What strategies do they use to counter the often subtle effects gang members may have on an entire institution? First, it is essential to positively identify organized crime members as early as possible in the correctional process, ideally at the remand stage before they pass through the gates of any federal institution.

Once they are in CSC custody, front-line workers employ multidisciplinary strategies based on proven principles and substantiated by research to stay one step ahead of these offenders. How staff reacts to a gang member is very specific to that individual in that particular situation: keeping them under close supervision, collecting information and, if need be, using it in court to prosecute for illegal activities. Gang members come to realize that trying to stay active members during incarceration is not in their best interests.

Security staff work diligently to sort out the full gang members from the associates, the hangers-on, and those who claim to be members but really aren’t. This is often difficult because smart gang members tend to keep a low profile in prison and blend in with the regular population. Their orders are passed down verbally with no direct link between the issuers and the followers who carry them out; their actions are protected by a wall of silence. For security staff, closing the gap between knowledge and legal proof of illegal activities is a challenge. Adding to the murk are other offenders — outsiders foolish enough to think they can gain some kind of status or protection by falsely claiming affiliation. It’s important for CSC staff to accurately identify the real players.

Cooperation and Communication

Central to the security and safety effort is the security intelligence officer (SIO) in each institution. “It’s a role that over the last few years has become increasingly strategic,” explains one security intelligence supervisor. “This means SIOs undergo thorough training in gang management and share best practices with other law enforcement agencies such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service which protects our national security interests.”

On a daily basis, SIOs across the country penetrate the surface of institutional life, gathering intelligence, sharing it with law enforcement partners and, most importantly, working with the correctional officers (CXs) that walk the floors of the ranges each day, interacting with offenders, and keeping their eyes and ears open.

“The CXs have incredible abilities to talk to these guys,” comments one SIO. “They get really good at sensing an inmate’s state of mind and know whether the inmate is trying to feed them lies or half-truths, whether their information is for real. They are trained to know that behind a gang member’s behaviour often there is an underlying strategy. So they watch carefully. I wouldn’t be able to do my job without the CXs. I’m only one employee; they are many.”

Correctional officers record vital clues as they become available. Reports are written and information flows both horizontally and vertically, through regional intelligence coordinators and into a national centralized intelligence unit, then on to other law enforcement agencies, and back again — a reciprocal process that continuously feeds itself and proves invaluable for decision makers. At first, it’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing, but gradually correlations are made and patterns of behaviour and association are established.

In 2004 CSC launched the Security Intelligence Network or SINet in maximum-security institutions across the country, a secure network for storing and sharing Protected ‘C’ and eventually secret information on gangs, suspicious or illegal activities occurring in CSC penitentiaries and in the community, and threats to the safety of staff, other offenders and the public. The goal is better and faster responses to security threats by giving SIOs and their counterparts in the community increased intelligence gathering, analysis and dissemination capabilities.

Information Management Services is currently in the process of hooking up minimum-security institutions to SINet and next year the connections will extend into the community via another secure network called the Classified Communications Network. This will allow CSC to safely share classified information with its law enforcement partners, including the RCMP, National Parole Board and many others. On an even larger front, the network will be linked to the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre that liaises with foreign intelligence organizations.

Involving All Staff

CSC’s comprehensive organized crime strategy is more than identification and surveillance. Just like every other inmate, gang members are required to follow a correctional plan that includes programs that go to the root of their antisocial behaviour and encourage them to break the ties or “disaffiliate” from their criminal organizations. These offenders are often in need of the Violence Prevention Program and community maintenance programs once they are on statutory release. Soon they will be able to take the newly developed Alternatives, Attitudes and Associates program that deals with peer pressure, antisocial lifestyle and self-control problems. The program will be piloted this winter and will be rolled out in the community and the institutions in June 2007.

All institutional employees play a vital role when it comes to dealing with organized crime. Many are well versed in the legal process necessary to identify an offender as a member or associate. They know if an inmate has been prosecuted under sections of the Criminal Code of Canada that deal with criminal organizations. Through the proper channels they can contact the Regional Strategic Intelligence Committee if they discover emerging gangs or gang activity. In their daily interactions, staff make it clear to offenders that membership or association in a criminal organization is considered a strong risk factor that influences parole recommendations and other decisions that affect the offender’s release plans. Even if they do achieve conditional release, record of their affiliations will follow them into the community. These are strong incentives for inmates to cease gang-related activities.

New Legislation Holds Promise

Canadian law enforcement and Crown prosecutors are hopeful that the country’s relatively new anti-gang legislation will give them increased clout against members of organized crime. So far, tougher laws have resulted in longer prison terms for members of the Quebec Hells Angels convicted of gangsterism. Still, there is a heavy burden imposed on the Crown to prove a crime has been committed for the benefit or with the help of a criminal organization.

Police and prosecutors are constantly devising new strategies to destabilize or cripple gang activities and to keep them off balance. Law enforcement agencies are lobbying hard for harsher sentences for criminals that target the most vulnerable in Canadian society and destroy their lives through both violent and non-violent crimes. As cases wind their way through the courts, new legal precedents will be set and CSC may find that it will be playing host to more and more of these types of offenders.

In the meantime, the Service is aware of the very real dangers of organized crime and working to counteract the effects both in institutions and in the community. Battling the global criminal will require the cooperation not only of law enforcement but all citizens in all countries working together. ♦