After spending his late teens and early 20s in a gang dealing drugs and getting into trouble, Jordan Buna turned his life around. Today, Buna volunteers with police to speak to youth about his experience. Gazette writer Deidre Seiden spoke to him about how he hopes his story helps young people make better choices.
Why did you join a gang?
I did it because I was a bored, stupid kid. I enjoyed it. It was scary. It was exciting. People from high school feared you and it seemed like they respected you. But that really started to lose its lustre after a while because the police get to have an idea of who you are and start harassing you. You start racking up criminal charges and making enemies. By 24, I was in all kinds of trouble — I was going to jail.
What made you get out?
I think the bad experiences I had helped me mature. One of the deciding factors for me was when I got sentenced to a year in jail for possession of a handgun. While I was in there, I looked around me and I was stuck with these people 24/7 and I was just like, 'This is the bracket of society that I chose to put myself in and I don't feel like I belong here.'
What's your role talking to youth?
One of the things I do is with Sgt. Lindsey Houghton from the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit in B.C. We go and speak at schools. I talk about the choices I made in my life that led me down the path of gang involvement and gang membership.
My message is to get students to stop and think when they're in a moment where they're with friends and there is potential for trouble, it's not all fun and games. I try to show them that the choices they make in their day-to-day life can have serious consequences that will resonate through today and beyond by taking them through my story. That's one thing that a lot of young people don't understand.
What's the response like?
The kids pay very close attention. We can hear a pin drop for the duration of the presentation because it's pretty hard-hitting material. I use the presentation as a story. Kids don't want to listen to facts and figures for an hour. By the time the presentation is finished, they're pretty invested in the story. And we've had nothing but kids coming up to us after and asking us questions.
What do they ask?
I get asked is if I'm scared if someone is going to come back after me. It's such an easy question to answer. I'm not scared. I've been out of it now for several years now. Everyone that was involved when I was involved is either dead or doing life in prison. There's not a long life expectancy when you're in a gang.
Why do you share your story?
To be able to go out and take all the experiences I've had and maybe spin them into a positive by helping other people. Maybe a few kids will decide that that's not what they want to do with their life and that's not the direction they want their life to go in.
Does the message carry more power coming from you than, say, the police?
I think the kids can relate to a lot of my stories because I start talking about my life from about Grade 6 to the present. I purposefully spend more time on the school years of my life than the gang years because then these kids realize that they're having a lot of the same experiences that I did. By listening to the story they can see my life get progressively worse as I make my choices.
The one great thing about doing this with Lindsey is the fact that he goes first and does the police perspective on gangs and then I go. And I put a personal touch on the police knowledge of gangs. So I think that both of us together are really effective.