A lot of you read my initial article about the youth street gang initiative that is taking place in Sudbury, even though there’s no evidence or confirmation that there are any organized gangs there. My article focused specifically on the poster being used by the Greater Sudbury Police because it depicted young children and babies in what appeared to be primarily hip hop clothing and accessories and in poses that made them look defiant. A lot of these kids were also non-Caucasian or of mixed race, greatly contradicting the demographic make-up of the Greater Sudbury area.
Read the original article here:
After writing that up, one of the organizing committee members, Norman Beauvais, left comments that were incredibly sexist and appalling for someone in a position of public responsibility. After a few exchanges, he finally wrote up an apology. I wrote a follow-up article and invited Norman to write an article for me which I would publish on this site. He agreed but I haven’t heard back from him and have not received an article. In the end, his reputation was tarnished as was the initiative taken by the police and the province who funded this in the first place.
Read my second article here:
After having fun ridiculing this major gaffe in advertising and reputation management, I thought I’d start a Facebook group and subsequently devoted an entire website, http://scarygangstababies.com, to the cause. Specifically, I use the Scary Gangsta website to give advice and share articles about how to spread your message online without making the same kind of mistakes that the Greater Sudbury police and its organizing committee have made with their street gang campaign.
Since then, I haven’t heard from anyone on that committee. I wrote an article on the Scary Gangsta website calling on anyone whose organization appears on the poster to contact me to give their take on it but it seems that no one from those organizations is monitoring their brand online. I’ve also offered to go to Sudbury and speak with these people, for free, on how to use the web to communicate their efforts properly. And… nothing.
So, here’s a breakdown of the kind of reach that my article(s) have had and why the police and its organizing committee should be more interested in their reputation. Below are the Google keywords and the page that my article appears on:
“street gang sudbury” – page 1, 4th result
“gang sudbury” – page 2
“norman beauvais” – page 1, 1st result
“gangsta sudbury” – page 1 (Facebook group is 1st result, scarygangstababies.com is 6th result and my article appears as the 10th result)
“anti-gang sudbury” – page 1, 1st result (higher listing than the media articles!)
“youth gang sudbury” – page 1, 4th result
“greater sudbury police gang” – page 2
So, anyone who’s looking for information about gangs in Sudbury and this campaign, will find my critique of it very easily (trust me, my traffic has increased greatly since this thing launched). Not exactly what you want if you’re hoping that this will be a community service! Again, it’s a mismanaged effort. Anything like this should launch with an accompanying website where the organizers can control the message (ok, they already do it through the weak local media) BUT the kids are online – if your target audience is youth, you NEED an online presence. Most of all, you need to do something proactive… information sessions? You’ve got to be kidding me. How about after-school programs, paid co-op placements, recreation centres and an online method for kids to find these services.
Sadly, the real gangs must be laughing at these efforts. This is truly a poor effort by the Sudbury police. The losers in all of this? The kids.
I’ve been made aware that there’s another one of those “information sessions” happening on April 20th. For information, click here:
Those sessions are open to the public, anyone can attend. So, here’s what I’d like you to do:
If you’re in the Sudbury area, consider attending the session. If you do, send me a note and let me know if the posters are indeed being used (they’re online but since I’m not in Sudbury, I don’t know if they’re posting them anywhere). If you really feel a bit daring, please ask some of the organizers if they’ve seen my articles. Ask them if they know about scarygangstababies.com and about the Facebook group. Ask them for feedback on whether or not they think their posters are racist and misleading to the public. And of course, let me know if you felt that the information session was relevant to Sudburians and if our provincial tax dollars were well spent.
Oh, most of all, tell me if they are advertising a website with resources to go along with this campaign because I haven’t been able to find anything online. Almost half a million dollars for a few information sessions? If that’s all that they’ve done with that money, then every Ontarian tax payer should launch a complaint about how these funds have been spent!
In other news, here’s a movement that is much better organized and much better for the community than the botched anti-gang campaign: the green initiative! At a recent Jane Goodall talk in Ottawa, I was informed that she mentioned Sudbury as an example of a community that has worked hard to become greener. Personally, I know a few people out there who are really making a difference, whether it be with online involvement or with local efforts like community gardening. The green movement is really gaining strength up north and this is incredibly refreshing! Here’s a guide for Project Green for all of you Sudburians:
http://virtual.thesudburystar.com/doc/The-Sudbury-Star/project-green/2010041201/
And here’s a website that features various articles on the subject of the environment and ‘green living’ with a particular interest to Sudburians:
So, as mentioned earlier, if you do end up attending that street gang information session, leave a comment here or contact me! Other than the green initiative, do you know of any other successful projects happening in the North? What about in your area?
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4 Comments
Thxs so much for the link and post reference. I brand monitor continuously and use online media as one of the most cost effective ways to engage, create online conversations and share resources.
Locally, the non-profit media environment is stuck in a traditional one way Message controlling model run by Public relations grads. I find it ironic that our city’s brand can so easily be discussed by someone from Ottawa with not an iota of recognition locally – the prevailing attitude is to ignore and dismiss everything that cannot be controlled.
Well, the problem that I’ve found with Sudbury is that the ones in control of that city are quick to dismiss any criticism as being ‘negative’. I’ve heard things like “oh, people from the cities don’t understand the north” or “you just want to generalize and give us a bad rap” or “why don’t you report about the good things in Sudbury?”. My argument is that I’m not a journalist. I’m a blogger. I don’t care about ‘fair and balanced’. I genuinely care about the fact that people are getting ripped off and misled and what pisses me off is that Sudburians are used to be skeptical but quiet. A lot of Sudburians distrust the police and their local government but they’re terrified to say something about it. In the north, you’ll be branded a crazy activist and dismissed a lot quicker than if you raised your voice in the city. If only the locals were as passionate about proper governance, fighting discrimination and fighting for proper policing as they are about standing in solidarity with the striking mining community.
The non-profits are lucky if they can staff someone in a communications role in the first place! In a lot of cases, for the smaller orgs, it’s one of the managers or the executive director who takes care of marketing, communications, public relations, etc. Problem is, usually, that person is clueless about new media or has too much on their plate to learn about how to use it. That doesn’t bother me as much as a larger organization, like the police, who have a huge responsibility to ensure that their programs are effective. In the case of this provincially-funded program, Sudburians need to ask themselves if the police are doing everything that they can to prevent gang activity or if this is just a ‘pretend effort’. If the entire program consists only of “information sessions”, then it’s a major FAIL. And I can’t believe that no one in the local media is reporting on that. That’s a major failure in policing AND in journalism 101.
I know this is an old post, but I would like to point out that driving just past Notre Dame towards the valley there is a Hell’s Angel’s clubhouse that is still active today (and has been for 10+ years). So much for the police completely solving the biker problem? They are still involved in a majority of the drug trade that happens here in Sudbury.
Another thing that I would also like to point out, no Sudbury does not have a gang issue, but there is a lot of drug issues (oxy’s, pot, cocaine). Drugs more often than not lead to violent situations, and some very stupid decisions being made (not that doing drugs in the first place was not stupid). I think the police need to target Sudbury’s youth on drug use, screw this ‘gang’ crap.
Thanks for the comment – thing is, I think that it’s not really a policing issue. It has to do with the fact that these kids don’t have much at their disposal in terms of after-school programs.. there’s not a hell of a lot to do in Sudbury and if there is, it’s not working. I think this comes down to community building and ensuring that there’s a good social structure in place to take care of the kids and of their parents (many of whom are low or no-income). By continuing this anti-youth gang campaign, they’re doing nothing to help the original and more important issues facing these kids.