Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, flanked by Justice Minister Alison Redford, left, and Solicitor General Fred Lindsay, right, speaks to reporters on Friday. (CBC)

High-risk young people in immigrant and aboriginal communities as well as those in Chestermere, a town east of Calgary, will be targeted with new programs to fight the growth of gangs.

The province is providing more than $2 million to be shared among three community agencies, Premier Ed Stelmach said Friday at the Alberta Gang Crime Summit in Calgary.

One of the agencies — the Chestermere Crime Reduction Partnership — will work with youth that the RCMP have identified to be at high risk of gang involvement. Stelmach said young people outside the province's bigger cities are also vulnerable to falling into a gang lifestyle.

"A lot of the gangs are recruiting outside the larger centres of Edmonton and Calgary and what the police were saying is the surveillance isn't as intense in the surrounding communities and [it's] easier for them to recruit members," said Stelmach.

In September 2008, a suspected gang member was shot to death and found lying on the front steps of his family's home. Police allege a marijuana grow operation was found in the victim's home.

One month later, two masked men shot a Chestermere homeowner in a home invasion and robbery.

"There's gang activity all over Calgary and realistically, we are a suburb of Calgary. There is spillover from the bigger city. People involved in gang activity have to live somewhere," said RCMP Cpl. David Friend.

Kandis Marshall, who lives in the town with her three children, hopes the $356,000 announced by the province for the Chestermere program will help. "It seems in the smaller towns, the less programs there are for the kids, the more drugs and alcohol there are," she said.

A survey of more than 1,200 students in Grades 6 to 12 in Chestermere found that more than half said they don't always feel safe in the community, and almost 80 per cent felt drug use was common.

Funding for immigrant, aboriginal programs

Immigrant Services Calgary is receiving $900,000 in funding for a prevention program aimed at low-income immigrant and refugee youth.

"Kids come here and they don't necessarily speak English," said Wendy Fehr, resource development and communications manager for the agency.

"They are struggling to find out, 'Where do I fit into Canadian culture?' Then [they] come into contact with a gang and there is there acceptance right away, their sense of family, their sense of community. That provides a lot of attraction for youth."

The province is also allotting $1.5 million for Native Counselling Services of Alberta in Edmonton.

Special teams enhanced

Stelmach also announced Friday that the province will move 51 sheriffs from the Solicitor General's Department to special teams, called ALERT (Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams), to fight gangs.

Solicitor General Fred Lindsay said the sheriffs will work with ALERT's eight intelligence teams and seven enforcement teams.

"They're going to be that much more effective and efficient working there because they're going to be working right in the same offices as the special investigative units that work in ALERT," said Lindsay.

About 150 representatives of government, police agencies and non-profit groups met Thursday and Friday to discuss different methods of suppressing gang activity.