Back in February, City Councilman Tony Young and staff from the city’s Commission on Gang Prevention and Intervention met with a deputy city attorney to discuss the implementation of a state program called the Safe Passage Program.
The gang commission voted to support the effort to bring the program to two San Diego schools, Gompers Charter Middle School and Montgomery Middle School.
The program aims to create a multi-agency enforcement partnership that provides safety from gang-related crimes to children on streets, bus stops and on bus lines around schools for one hour before and after school.
The first Safe Passage meetings were held in March, and it was decided that, as a first step, each school should survey its students to see what the students perceived as the safety issues around their school.
Here are some of the results, taken from an informational report by the gang commission for the City Council’s Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee:
Montgomery Students who walked or rode the bus to or from school that felt either somewhat unsafe or not at all safe:
Gompers Charter Middle School students who walked or rode the bus to or from school that felt either somewhat unsafe or not at all safe:
Here’s how Gompers students responded to the gang issues near their school:
And at Montgomery:
The report also said that all the students indicated that parks were unsafe. At Gompers, 7th graders rated the streets as the No.1 unsafe area. Montgomery students said the most unsafe areas were parks.
The report states that the commission will request the Attorney General’s Office to expand the program to more schools.