Safe Passage
OUR GOAL
We identify and address the place-based causes of youth victimization and crime at five focus locations, known as "hotspots" in the Rainier Beach neighborhood. We engage the Rainier Beach community, Seattle Police, and many other community-based organizations, businesses, and schools to implement non-arrest interventions.
OUR APPROACH
The place-based, non-arrest approach is founded on research at George Mason University's (GMU) Center for Evidence-Based Crime Prevention Policy, which determined that crime impacting youth is highly concentrated at place. The research further indicates that formal criminal justice approaches can have negative outcomes for youth, their futures, their families and their community.
- 1810 E Yesler Way
Seattle, WA, 98122 - jenny@sngi.org
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(206) 323-9584
- https://www.rb-safeplaceforyouth.com/
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EducationYouth Programs
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Health & WellnessSocial & Health Services
What is Safe Passage?
Since 2015, Safe Passage has provided active place guardianship, community and youth engagement, and increased access to services through the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative (SYVPI) to decrease and de-escalate fight disturbances, reduce property damage and violent crime on the Rainier Beach Campus, an area encompassing the community center and several elementary, middle, and high schools.
Safe Passage, a program of the Boys & Girls Club of King County, actively engages school administrators and teachers, community center staff, youth, and neighboring business owners to create and promote a “zone of safety” on the campus after school hours.
Team members, affectionately named “Be Safe Bros” or the “Blue Coats,” are trained to de-escalate situations that may lead to fight disturbances, build positive relationships that engage youth in pro-social activities, and refer youth to employment, case management, and other resources as needed.
Safe Passage is loosely modeled after programs with the same name in Chicago and Los Angeles, and is one of our non-arrest/intervention approaches to community building in the Rainier Beach neighborhood.