Female Gangs—An Alarming Trend

“RUTHLESS, volatile and brutal” were words used by The Globe and Mail newspaper to describe girl gangs based in Canadian high schools. Tired of being part of male gangs, a growing number of girls are asserting their independence. One Toronto police detective, specializing in youth gangs, observed that girls are “asserting themselves in a very violent way.” They have a willingness to “use weapons and ‘extreme’ force” and are “often more ruthless and aggressive than their male counterparts,” said Dr. Fred Mathews in the Globe. Why? A popular perception among lawless youths, according to one police constable, is that girls are “likelier to get less time in jail if they’re caught.” A police spokesman told the Globe that “girls as young as 11 are involved in petty crime and trafficking in drugs and weapons in high schools.”

Dr. Mathews, a psychologist and authority on such violence, interviewed female gang members over a ten-year period and found them to be “angry and rebellious, largely owing to an abusive or dysfunctional family.” What draws such youths to gangs? Gangs offer “a sense of community and security,” says a former member. However, when interviewed by the newspaper, she admitted to two attempts at suicide in order to escape from the gang and added: “A lot of those so-called accidental deaths and the suicides in the suburbs are nothing more than gang murders. You protect each other when you’re in the gang. The problem is that you can’t protect each other from each other.”

One concerned high-school teacher said: “The violent girls we deal with are completely unpredictable. When they’re angry, you don’t know where they are going to strike. And if you’re a teacher, that’s very scary.” Concerning “the last days,” the Bible predicted that times would be “hard to deal with” because people, including youths, would be “without self-control, fierce.”—2 Timothy 3:1-5.