School and Community Resource Officer Program

We all know that the best way to combat crime in our community is early prevention. There is no better way to stop crime, before it happens, than by stopping our young people from going down a path of gangs and drugs. Under our current Sheriff, we have one deputy designated as a School Resource Officer, and our Community Resource Officer programs have been decimated. The Sheriff will tell you that we cannot afford to have these programs now, but I say we cannot afford NOT to have these programs. Helping lower income families and schools, that struggle to keep our children on the right path, is not a priority of our current Sheriff. For years the Sheriff’s Department led the way in our community with helping children, their families and schools in their time of need. There was a period of time, before our current Sheriff eliminated our programs, in which we went three years in the county without a gang homicide. This was because we were an integral partner in our schools and community. We gave these children role models that they could look up to. We provided the youth an alternative to gangs and drugs. We helped teach them skills that would allow them to choose a different path rather than the one in which they believed was their only way out. We worked with children during the school day and after school, so that they did not have to hang out with gangs or run the streets, which would inevitably, lead them straight to trouble. Our community centers use to be the hub of juvenile programs. Centers ran by the Human Services Agency, partnered with the Sheriff’s department to provided tutoring, recreation programs, but most importantly mentoring. When the Sheriff eliminated the Community Liaison Deputy, he eliminated these programs. Programs that gave our children a chance for success. I will invest in our children’s future by bringing back these programs.