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A breakdown in relations between two of the province’s largest gangs has led to an eruption of violence that has some inmates and staff at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre fearing for their safety.

“I’ve been going there since 1998, and I’ve never seen it like this,” said Fr. André Poilièvre, who routinely visits the “bursting” facility as part of his work with Str8 Up, the organization he founded that works to help young people leave street gangs.

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Tension continued to build even after members of the once-friendly Westside Outlaws and Indian Posse were segregated following two major fights in the jail late last month, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix has learned.

There have been confrontations and fights between members of the gangs, which are rivalled only by the Terror Squad in terms of size and power, since a five-day lockdown was lifted at the end of August, sources inside the jail said.

“If you just came in today and you’d never been there before, you’d take it for granted that that’s what going on. But people like myself who have been going there for 30 years have seen the escalation of that stress and that tension and that conflict,” Poilièvre said.