Trauma is the root cause of Winnipeg’s problems says outreach worker – APTN News
Feb 21, 2023
Drugs, gangs, prison – it was the life that Vinnie Lillie grew up in.
Growing up in Winnipeg’s north end, Lillie says he had to adapt to his surroundings and the negativity he surround himself with.
When Lillie was still a young, with his father was in prison, he was lacking an older male role model and so he gravitated to older men.
It wasn’t until Lillie entered the prison system himself that he became a member of a gang.
For more than a decade, he was in and out of the correctional system, including three federal prison sentences at Stony Mountain Institution.
Lillie says he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from his experiences in prison. He has a fear of using urinals in public places because he is afraid he will be attacked from behind – something that he says happened to him numerous times while incarcerated.
