According to criminal justice consultant and youth gang expert Michael Chettleburgh, every Canadian city has, or will soon have, a problem with youth gangs. He shows us the statistics: 62 gangs, with over 1,100 members, in Toronto alone (the highest in the country), and working gangs in such vast metropolises as Thunder Bay and Brandon. It’s no longer a big-city problem or even an isolated community problem, it’s everyone’s problem, and one to which Chettleburgh’s Young Thugs is a concise introduction.

Young Thugs deals with the two big questions: why is this happening, and how can we stop it? The why is a bit easier to answer, though still not as simple as many would like. Is it video games or gangsta rap? Chettleburgh argues it’s more complex than that. Youths join gangs because of a deadly mix of bad experiences and lost opportunities. Poverty, low self-esteem, peers, and parents all play a role in the apprenticeship of a young gangster.

But equally important to understand is what we can do once gangs have taken root in our communities. To this end, Chettleburgh offers a “Sixteen-Point Gang-Prevention Plan,” which is also a blueprint for inner-city community development. The fact is, gangs are the symptom, not the disease. We need policing, true, but we also need parenting, schooling, mentoring, jobs, affordable housing, and maybe even legalized drugs to starve street gangs of their bread and butter.

The chapter on drugs is the most interesting – and potentially controversial – of the book, and it really highlights Chettleburgh’s ability to distill and clarify a complex issue. But the fact is, drug reform alone would only get us so far in suppressing youth gangs. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say, but when it comes to something as complex as gangs, you need a lot of ounces.