understanding Violence Among Somali Canadian Male Youth – A Population Health Perspective

In the past decade, the Somali Canadian community has experienced a heightened
rate of youth violence. Since 2005 several dozen young Somali men have lost their lives.
Most of the incidents occurred in Edmonton and Toronto, with sporadic incidents in
Ottawa as well. The violence, mostly concentrated in northern Alberta, attracted
sustained media attention which, in turn, led to public and private discussions within the
Somali community. This study explores the determinants of youth involvement in violence
and related criminal activities, as well as the impact of that violence on the families of its
victims and perpetrators, and the larger Somali community.
The study’s design consisted of in-depth interviews with Somali Canadians and
non-Somali key informants, in the three cities where the majority of the Somali
population resides, to elicit their explanations of the violence, and their perceptions of its
impact.
Results indicate that the proximal determinant of the violence was the young
men’s participation in the drug trade in northern Alberta. Distally, determinants of the
violence link three intersecting themes: poverty, racialization and gender. Poverty and
racism marked the early lives of the male youth and their families in Ontario. The
resettlement barriers experienced by first generation Somali refugees, the racism that this
community and its youth encountered in public institutions such as schools, the criminal
justice system and the media, and the anti-poor posture of neoliberalism, combined to
create vulnerabilities to risky behaviour in male youth. My analysis suggests that young
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men entered the drug trade and/or participated in criminal activities in order to fill
material needs and enhance their self-esteem.
The inequities that underpin the determinants of violence require remedy at
multiple levels. I propose an evidence-based population health framework for the
prevention of youth violence, and identify interactive levels (individual, community,
institutional, societal) at which to target prevention and intervention efforts

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