Toronto is seeing a disturbing increase in youth participation in violent and high-risk crimes-from the smash-and-gerb dacoit to firing-increasing the alarm between the social advocates. A young activist says that the motivations behind these crimes are changing.
Founder of Marcel Wilson A movementNotes that the age of the people involved in “egoistic acts” is falling short of 12 to 15 years of age.
“When it comes to organized crime and gang culture, the ideology behind it is usually about money and a lot of time, violence was one of the last measures,” Wilson said.
These days, an important part of inspiration to commit crimes stems from social media effects, also known as “Clout,” Wilson notes.
“It has become equal to the social currency or is of course for more importance than money,” he continued. “Another issue we are seeing is that people doing these acts are eager to display them and want the city to be in fear.”
Community leaders say that fear, frustration and shifting effects are running more young people in violent crimes.
Viewed in a recent example A 14 -year -old boy accused a 71 -year -old woman of stabbing As he packed his grocery items in a North York Plaza Parking. Kishore was reportedly appeared on a live stream on social media, before he was arrested, openly talking about the heinous act.
Earlier this month, a 13 -year -old girl and a 14 -year -old girl were accused of attacking, causing physical damage It ended in the alleged attack The owner of a pizza pizza in Oshwa tried to stop the youth from stealing soda pop. An 11 -year -old man was also identified as one of the suspects.
Wilson said, “This has been something that we have been screaming from the roofs for a long time.” “Social media that plays the role.”
According to data received by Citynews, 87 youths have been arrested in Toronto in connection with gun violence so far this year. It has been below 112 arrests in 2024 at the same time – 22 percent decrease. Despite the decline, advocates that a youth involved in such crimes is also very high.
Wilson said, “There are a lot of broken things within the system. The things that we dance often, we discuss. We have meetings about them, but nothing has ever been done,” Wilson said, who agrees that the youth have been found guilty of violent offenses, they should be held accountable, but the work does not end. Improvement requires more attention.
He said, “We are punishing without security. We are punishing without treatment, and we need to invest a lot there,” he said. “To be educated on social media culture and understand that you are a child you see at home every day, but then they have an online personality. Do you know your child’s online personality?”
