Back in October 2024, Montreal Police Chief Fady Dagher issued an urgent plea to parents to watch for signs that their children were getting caught up in criminal activities. “We can save them, we can stop them from going down this criminal path,” he said at the time, amid concerns that more and more youth are being recruited by criminal groups to carry out their dirty work. Now, there is some data to back that up. Statistics Canada released new figures this week showing that while violent crime went down last year for a second year in a row in Canada, in Quebec it’s on the rise among youth. The youth crime severity index in Quebec has been trending upward since 2015, according to StatsCan, which shows an increase of about 71 per cent over the past 10 years. There are several reasons to explain this phenomenon, but one that plays a significant role is the use of social media, which exploded among youth during the pandemic, according to Montreal criminologist Maria Mourani. Social media apps have become a prime recruiting ground for criminal groups to dangle quick and easy jobs for cash for teens who are at an age where they’re not afraid of taking risks. “And what we’re seeing, unfortunately, is that social media glorifies violence. Violence is glorified—when you’re violent, you go viral,” Mourani said in an interview. “There are young people who film themselves beating up other young people with knives—and sometimes even with firearms, even if they’re fake—because that’s what creates a buzz; it gets views.” On top of that, since the end of the pandemic, Montreal has seen several conflicts between organized crime groups playing out in certain neighbourhoods, prompting some youth who live in them — and aren’t necessarily involved in gangs — to arm themselves with weapons as a means to defend themselves. “And as is usually very clear in criminological research, when you have a weapon—whether it’s a firearm or a bladed weapon— you’re more likely to get hurt or hurt someone than when you’re unarmed,” Mourani added. In March, the Quebec government announced $19 million to fund 11 projects in the Montreal area to tackle youth crime. But Mourani believes “the same old formula” of funding the same types of community-based programs is not enough to address the new dynamic on social media. Social media bans for teens under 16 could help solve the problem, she said. Even though the Statistics Canada numbers are concerning, Montreal police say one of their new measures has been showing promising results to tackle the problem. Investigators involved in Project Aurora are carrying out what they call “structured monitoring” of social media apps where contracts are given out to young people for arsons, shootings, home invasions, and other crimes. In March, the SPVM said they have arrested 20 people so far, many of whom are between 14 and 17 years old who were targeting businesses in extortion cases. According to police, the youth who are recruited to carry out these criminal acts on businesses rarely receive the money they are promised, pointing to the “unstable and deceptive” nature of the clandestine online exchanges. “So they dangle the prospect of a quick and easy way to make money in front of these young people, but of course they manipulate them—they don’t tell them about all the risks, such as the risk of not getting paid, the risk to their own lives, the risk of being incarcerated, and so on,” Mourani said. “These young people are immature; adolescence is a time of impulsivity—it’s all about taking risks.” Statistics Canada’s numbers, released on Wednesday, show that while violent crime among youth in Quebec is rising, the overall crime rate in the Montreal census metropolitan area fell 5 per cent in 2025 compared to the previous year. The 2025 crime rate, which measures crime relative to the population, fell 5 per cent in the Montreal area compared to the year before. Montreal’s Crime Severity Index (CSI) dropped to 61.3 last year, a 5 per cent decrease from the previous year, and well below the national average of 75, which also marked a 5 per cent decrease.
