Security Threat Groups

Traditional organized crime groups, outlaw motorcycle gangs, street gangs… On the outside, we think of them as criminal organizations. But inside Canada’s federal prisons, we refer to them as Security Threat Groups (STGs).

STGs represent a complex and evolving challenge in federal prisons in Canada. But what exactly are these groups and how do they impact life in prison?

In this episode, you’ll hear from Chris, a Senior Project Officer with more than 25 years of front-line experience at CSC, who explains how these groups influence safety, offender behaviour and reintegration efforts. He’ll also break down how these groups are monitored and the strategies CSC uses to maintain a safe and secure environment while supporting rehabilitation.

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Kirstan: Traditional organized crime groups, outlaw motorcycle gangs, street gangs, on the outside we think of them as criminal organizations. However, within the correctional system, we refer to them as Security Threat Groups (STGs). Security Threat Groups represent a complex and evolving challenge in federal prisons in Canada. But what exactly are these groups and how do they impact life in prison? I'm your host, Kirstan Gagnon, and welcome to another episode of Prisons Inside / Out.

Kirstan: Today we sit down with Chris, a Senior Project Officer with more than 25 years on the frontline with Correctional Service Canada (CSC). In our conversation, he explains how these groups influence safety, offender behavior and reintegration efforts. He'll also break down how these groups are monitored and the strategies CSC uses to maintain a safe and secure environment, all while supporting rehabilitation. Here's our conversation.

Kirstan: Hi, Chris. How are you?

Chris: I'm well. How are you?

Kirstan: Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us today on our podcast, Prisons Inside / Out. It's always fun to sit down with folks from CSC and hear about what they do and why it's important to Canadians. So, tell me a bit about this notion of Security Threat Groups. Is there another, more layperson term for that?

Chris: Sure. So, CSC is currently looking at our specific definition in relation to Security Threat Groups but really, at its simplest, a Security Threat Group is an identifiable group of offenders that pose a threat to people’s safety and the security of our correctional facilities. So, in the past, the term that was often used was criminal organizations, but we moved towards Security Threat Groups because Security Threat Groups can encompass groups that don't have any criminality as their main nexus. So, while the term Security Threat Group continues to cover groups like traditional organized crime or street gangs or motorcycle gangs, it can also cover terrorist organizations or other ideologically motivated violent extremists. So, it really is about exactly what it sounds like. It's a security threat to our institutions and to people’s safety.

Kirstan: Great, thanks for that definition. I think it's really helpful. In terms of, you mentioned a lot of different potential groups there, can you give me a bit of a description for how many groups that you have to deal with? That must be fairly complicated in terms of, I'm assuming, keeping people separate from each other if there are dangers within an institution, for example. Walk me through that.

Chris: So we currently, in our database, we're dealing with a little more than 250 separate groups. And as you said, one of the main challenges in regards to Security Threat Groups and how they impact on our operations is the issue of population management. So obviously not all of these groups get along with one another and since we as CSC, we have a mandate to safely house offenders, that can become a challenge. So we deal with that with a number of different concepts. So in some cases we will cluster groups that are getting along with one another in in certain institutions. In some cases, what we'll do is we'll just try and keep the numbers between the groups relatively the same so no one group becomes the dominant. And in other cases we will have institutions that operate more than one population at a time. So, they'll use what we call either closed populations or subpopulations. So even though the groups are in the institution and together, they don't interact with one another. So all of those things are ways that we deal with the issue of rivalries between the groups, but one of the big challenges that we're facing is that these groups are becoming more and more fluid and more and more complex. So we can have a group that gets along with one part of a rivalry, but also is dealing with the other side as well. So, you know, where do we house those with individuals with Group A or with Group B? And we see individuals that are moving between groups a lot more than we saw in the past where it was really, you know, once you were part of a gang, that was the gang you were part of. And now we're seeing more the emergence of criminal networks that are dealing with multiple groups at a time. So again, where do we house these individuals? So that's one of the, really, in terms of population management, that's one of our biggest challenges.

Kirstan: Seems like you've got it down to a science. It's very complex. There's a lot of factors. Take me through an individual coming into Correctional Service Canada, coming into custody, going through the intake process. How do you start that process of identifying what some of the risks may be?

Chris: Right. So as soon as an offender has received a federal sentence, they're going to be contacted by a Community Parole Officer (CPO) who's going to do basically a preliminary assessment and they're going to gather a bunch of different information, some of which can include information regarding Security Threat Groups, and then that's passed along back to our Security Intelligence staff. So when an offender actually comes into physical custody, so they arrive at an institution, they're going to be met by a staff member and there's a process that we call the assessment of affiliation with the Security Threat Group. So they're going to meet with, for instance, a Security Intelligence Officer (SIO) who's going to gather as much information as possible related to that affiliation and they're going to assess it under a number of different criteria. So things we look at are things like police information, information from the courts, information from human sources. What is the offender saying? Do they have any visible indicators such as gang-related tattoos? So, it's important to understand that the offender is part of that process. They do have an opportunity to provide a rebuttal in relationship to the gathered information. But once that information, including the offender’s submission is gathered, that's passed along to the Institutional Head, or in the community would be the District Director, and they're really the final decision maker. So really the Security Intelligence Officer is saying this is all the information that I have used to assess this affiliation and this is my recommendation as to what that affiliation should be, but at the end of the day, it's the Institutional Head or the District Director that's actually making the final decision. And then if they are affiliated to a group, then they're also going to be looking at what their role is. So, would they be an associate? Would they be a member? Would they be a key player within that group?

Kirstan: We've talked about intake so, once they're inside in terms of the routine and the dynamics, what do you have to say about that? How does that work?

Chris: Well, again, it will depend a great deal on what Security Threat Group they would be affiliated to and what the population management options are in that particular region or in that particular institution. So, Stony Mountain Institution in Manitoba, which I worked at for 25 years before joining our National Headquarters, it's an intake assessment unit. So basically, anyone who receives a federal sentence from Northwestern Ontario or Manitoba is going to go to Stony Mountain Institution where they're going to go through an intake assessment process to determine their final penitentiary post and placement. So that means we have to deal with all of the gangs in that area, whether they get along or not. So, at Stony Mountain Institution in the past, they have utilized closed subpopulations. So, they've basically kept certain gangs that that didn't get along with other gangs in their own separate population within the institution itself. In some cases, that is until such time as they could be transferred to another institution where that particular Security Threat Group can be housed. Or in some cases, especially with larger groups that are central to Manitoba, then they would be housed at Stony Mountain Institution in that separate population. But as I said, that would be completely different than the experience of an offender in the Pacific Region where they have multiple institutions relatively close to one another, so they house clusters of allied groups. So, depending on what your affiliation was, that would be a determining factor in what institution you were actually placed at.

Kirstan: That's great. So we're called Prisons Inside / Out, I want to understand a bit more about the dynamics inside and out. So, if you keep the calm inside, does that have any impact on what's going on outside or vice versa?

Chris: It can in some cases and in other cases, not so much. So, it's very important for us to be very accurate in our intelligence and to be collaborating with our criminal justice partners to be aware of what's going on in the community. So an incident between different Security Threat Groups in the community can absolutely have an impact on what's happening within our institutions. Likewise, something that happens in a provincial institution and vice versa. So, an incident that happens within our federal institutions can have an impact on gang dynamics in the community as well. However, what we also have found is not everything always mirrors what's going on in the community. So, the groups that would not normally get along in the community, that would be considered rivals in the community, they may put aside those issues within a federal institution if it's in their best interest to do so. So if they know that ‘hey, if we don't get along with this gang at this institution, that means we're going to have to be transferred to an institution, you know, in some other areas of the country. So, for the sake of staying close to our home, we'll get along for now within this institution.’ So, again, it really focuses on why it's so important to be accurate in our intelligence and to be paying attention to what's going on, because any one of those dynamics can change in a heartbeat and suddenly we're having to deal with the ramifications of groups that got along with one another no longer getting along with one another.

Kirstan: So while they're inside at Correctional Service Canada in one of our institutions, are there programs in place to help with gang disaffiliation, deterrence, those sorts of things?

Chris: There certainly are. So, first of all, I think it's important to distinguish between two different but very important terms. So, within Correctional Service Canada, when we speak about disengagement, disengagement are efforts that an offender is taking to separate themselves a gang. Disaffiliation is the process that Correctional Service Canada uses in regards to changing the affiliation status of an offender. So, if you are successfully disengaging from your STG, then we, obviously, want to make sure that your affiliation status is, we disaffiliate you. So, you know, at some point we change you to inactive as opposed to active or if there's information that you've actually, you know, been successful in your disengagement that we would want to reflect that your affiliation has been terminated. So, disengagement is what the offenders are doing is disaffiliation is what we are doing. Now all of that being said, yes. So, we have a number of programs within Correctional Service Canada. So, we have some correctional programs, we have social programs, we have employment programs. So, these programs are designed to address criminogenic factors or the reasons behind why somebody commits a crime, and whether you're a member of a Security Threat Group or not, those same type of criminogenic factors can emerge. So, things like, you know, you hang out with bad people, you make bad choices. So, our correctional programs are designed to give you the tools to be able to deal with those particular things. Now in regards to do we have a formal, you know, program that you take to leave the gang? We don't have anything currently within Correctional Service Canada. However, we are working on a Security Threat Group Strategy that will help to define some of those and in the meantime, what we're doing is we are working collaboratively with community groups. So there's a group in Saskatchewan called SRT8 UP and they provide a number of different services, including a gang to disengagement program that's Indigenous-based. So, we have worked with them, with offenders that are both within the federal institutions but also within the community and I think that's a really important aspect of what we're going to be looking at with our Security Threat Group Strategy is the fact that we've tended historically to concentrate on what's happening within our institutions. But of course, we also have a responsibility once these offenders are released back into the community. And one of the real advantages of working with community groups like STR8 UP is that that the continuum of care can continue even past warrant expiry. So that safety net is out there for these offenders even when Correctional Service Canada is no longer involved in their lives.

Kirstan: So warrant expiry, when their sentence is done, they would have some continuity with some resources and some supports in the community. Great.

Chris: Yeah, absolutely.

Kirstan: Well, you're incredibly knowledgeable on this topic. What are you most proud of?

Chris: I think I'm going to be most proud of the Security Threat Group Strategy when it comes to fruition. So, we are looking to try and address the barriers that currently face Security Threat Group-affiliated offenders and, again, we kind of talked about, you know, the development of some type of disengagement program that will help assist them. Right now, according to our policies, affiliation with the Security Threat Group is considered a significant risk in and of itself. So, if you do nothing else, just the fact that you've been affiliated can produce barriers. So, it can affect your pay level, it can affect your ability to get into programs and things like that and really what we're trying to do is we're trying to shift that paradigm to concentrating on your individual behaviors. So, if you are a member of a gang, but you are participating in your correctional plan and you are not causing problems within the institution, then you should have access to the same types of things as everyone else. Now, if you're going to act, you know, like a gang member, you're going to be involved in contraband and violence and those types of things, then you're going to be removing those opportunities from yourself. So I think once that Security Threat Group Strategy is complete, I'm going to be very proud of what we've done to basically remove those barriers while, again, maintaining the safety and security of our institutions and our staff and our offenders as well.

Kirstan: Do you get an opportunity to speak with offenders a lot in your work?

Chris: Not as much now, now that I work for National Headquarters, but I did. I did serve 25 years at Stony Mountain Institution, so a ‘lifer’, and I worked as a Correctional Officer. I did 8 years as a Detector Dog Handler Search Specialist, and then 14 years as a Security Intelligence Officer. So, I did have the opportunity to speak to offenders on a regular basis and, of course, as an SIO, one of the focuses is on Security Threat Group affiliation. So I was the one who was meeting with them and gathering the information and making the recommendations regarding their affiliations. But I was also the one that they could come to saying, ‘hey, you know what? I don't like this life anymore, I wanna leave, but I am concerned about my safety and what can you do for me?’ and working with their case management team to try and come up with some solutions in that regard.

Kirstan: I really appreciate it the conversation today, is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Chris: I think, one myth that I've dealt with quite a bit since getting in this job and talking to people, is the myth that, you know, once Correctional Service Canada puts this, you know, affiliation label on you: that's the end. You know, there's nothing you can do possibly to get rid of it or anything. And I mean, I'd like to say, so our research shows that of the affiliations that we have in our database, over half of them are inactive or terminated. Which means obviously it is possible, you know, if you take the steps to disengage, then we'll take the steps to disaffiliate. So, I would definitely want to try and, you know, quash that myth that this is, you know, once this label is there, there's nothing that can be done. Because we're working with these individuals all the time and our mandate with our Security Intelligence Officers is if you receive new information that would warrant a change in their affiliation status, then your job is to do that, you know, that assessment and complete it based on the new information that's come forward

Kirstan: I know that at Correctional Service Canada, safety is something that comes up every day and also reducing violence in our institutions because we have incredible staff that work there and we want to keep them safe as well. This work that you do is really contributing to that full picture.

Chris: Yeah, I mean, again, some of our research that's been done by our research branch recently in relation to Security Threat Groups has been really, really good. And I mean, what the research is showing and what the intelligence is showing is, unfortunately, these Security Threat Groups, you know, and the individuals that are affiliated to them, they are responsible for, you know, a significant amount of the violence that we see within our institutions, especially incidents that involve more than one aggressor against one victim. Those were predominantly, you know, we've been able to determine they're predominantly related to gang-related violence and likewise our issues with contraband, our research and our intelligence shows that, you know, individuals that are involved in these groups are much more likely to be involved in things like bringing in illicit drugs into our institutions. So, while our planned Security Threat Groups Strategy is looking to remove barriers, you know, for individuals who are related to these, there's also security component to it and managing the security risks that these groups present as well. So, I mean, at the end of the day, you're right. We want our institutions and our communities to be safe, not just for our staff, but for the offenders as well.

Kirstan: Well this has been fascinating. Thank you so much for your time, Chris, and thanks for participating in the podcast today.

Chris: Thank you very much. It's my pleasure.

Kirstan: That's all for today's episode. Thanks to Chris for taking the time to talk to us about Security Threat Groups. If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe and tune in next time as we continue exploring the programs and people making an impact across Correctional Service Canada. This has been a production of Correctional Service Canada and I've been your host, Kirstan Gagnon. Thanks for listening.