Q&A – PBSO’s Safe Place Initiative
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s Entry: Today’s note was sent to me with a link to PBSO’s new Safe Place Initiative with the comment “Rainbow Sheriff”.
Bottom Line: So... Yes, last week the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office became the latest law enforcement agency to certify under what’s known as the “Safe Place” program. As PBSO notes...
The Safe Place program began with Seattle Police Department in 2015, originally born out of a need to address low reporting of anti-LGBTQ crimes. In 2018 it was expanded to include all hate crimes. Currently, there are over 360 agencies throughout the world licensed in the Safe Place program. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office is the 361st agency.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Safe Place Initiative is a partnership between this agency and the business community to help respond to hate crimes. Safe Place gives people who have experienced a crime of bias or hate a safe place to go after their incident, where they can be assured that the business will shelter them while they call for help.
Under this program, businesses have the opportunity to visibly display an easily identifiable “Safe Place” decal, assuring any victim of a hate crime that the location is a safe space for someone to seek shelter, as the Sheriff’s Office is contacted.
One need looks no further than the first sentence to find a reason to be skeptical of what’s now being implemented within Palm Beach County. Any program born out of Seattle’s Police Department, which was the home of the original “welcoming city” declaration for illegal immigrants among other things...doesn’t exactly inspire confidence as a best practice for other law enforcement agencies. Especially for the sheriff’s office in President Trump’s home county. So, what exactly is going on here and how did this come about? Let’s start with where it started in Seattle.
According to the founders...
- The Safe Place Program© was established out of a need to address low reporting of anti-LGBTQ crimes and school bullying incidents by increasing public trust in law enforcement and feelings of safety in the community. The program was expanded in 2018 to include anyone who may have been a victim of a bias crime.
The founder of the program was Seattle PD’s first “LGBTQ liaison”. Notably, PBSO already had LGBTQ Liaisons in place preceding acceptance into this program. The liaisons have three different divisions within the county (South, North & West – each with its own non-emergency line). The PBSO liaison program is run in conjunction with the Compass Community Center. As noted by PBSO:
The LGBTQ Liaison Officer strengthens the relationship between the LGBTQ community and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office by creating mutual trust and confidence through community involvement, departmental education, and by ensuring fair and professional policing services.
Our Liaison Deputies are available to work with community members, business owners, and visitors in the following areas:
- Work as a single point of contact between the Sheriff’s Office and the LGBTQ community.
- Work with all units of the Sheriff’s Office that request assistance in identifying with LGBTQ citizens and addressing their concerns.
- Assist and advise, as needed, with the Sheriff’s Office leadership on cases involving the LGBTQ community or LGBTQ issues.
- Provide a forum for the LGBTQ community to express concerns regarding crimes directed against the LGBTQ community.
- Meet with and provide a forum for business owners, community groups, and individuals of the LGBTQ community, and present information on relevant law enforcement issues.
- Collaborate with community leaders, businesses, and residents to design and implement public safety projects and programs to increase and improve the safety of the LGBTQ community.
- Facilitate an overall open relationship between the LGBTQ community and the Sheriff’s Office.
Now one might wonder why it is that homosexuals and/or those who identify with something within the homosexual alphabet need to be super served within any law enforcement agency. Activists point to an ACLU study purporting to show homosexuals as more likely to be mistreated by police.
In Palm Beach County this came about due to the sheriff’s office decision to apply for a grant from the Biden Justice Department last year which was granted for $175,000 for the implementation of this program in PBSO. Participating businesses, or “Safe Places”, can request a rainbow-colored decal in the shape of a police badge.
With the facts established here are a couple of points. First, I’m a big advocate of community policing – meaning that having established relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve. From a point of altruism – that's what is argued here – that this type of program aids in relationship building in community policing. On the other hand, there’s a great deal that’s inappropriate.
First, having a segregated police program to super serve people in a community fails to meet the objective of equal treatment under the law. Second, and this goes for businesses that might be pressured into donning the rainbow badge, segregation based on differences only creates further divisions in society. The best way to bridge divides within a community is to stop segregating the treatment of people on the basis of differences. Third, DEI programs have proven to be a failure that the state of Florida has banned in most instances and that society at large has moved away from. PBSO moving in this direction at this moment in time at best would appear to be tone deaf.
Maybe one day people will adhere to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of one being judged on the content of character – programs like Safe Places are diametrically opposed to that dream and should not be a part of public policy. If there are law enforcement officers who don’t treat homosexuals properly – fire them and hire people who will treat people equally under the law. That’s the appropriate answer here.