‘Safe Homes’ Network Makes Sense for L.A. : City can learn from Santa Clarita’s child protection efforts

The heinous kidnaping deaths, in late 1993, of 8-year-old Nicole Parker of the San Fernando Valley and 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma focused critical attention on the need to protect children in their own neighborhoods. So did the case of the elusive serial child molester who terrorized Valley children on their way to school over a period of several months.

One of the best ideas gleaned from those awful experiences was the concept of “Safe Houses.” The hope was to create a citywide network of trusted adults whose homes would be clearly marked by green triangles. They would be places where children could find safe harbor when threatened or frightened by strangers.

The Los Angeles Police Department seemed to be solidly behind the idea, but this was a ship that would soon founder on the rocks of the city bureaucracy. Back in February, for example, we pointed out that the effort had been brought to an unfortunate standstill.

To be sure, the LAPD was properly focused on the area of most obvious concern: how to ensure that the adults selected for such important duty were truly qualified and not predators themselves. Understandably, the LAPD wanted nothing less than a full federal criminal records check of all Safe House volunteers. The problem? In a word, cost.

U.S. Justice Department records checks cost $32 apiece, regardless of outcome. The LAPD said it didn’t have that kind of change on hand. The Los Angeles Unified School District said the same.

Well, the dramatic success of just one Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department station, Santa Clarita city officials, and parent Karin Nelson suggests that the idea should be resurrected. A rather amazing group of 500 residents have signed up with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s station as Safe House participants.

These volunteers agreed to undergo a background check. Sheriff’s deputies were also required to contact a list of references supplied by the volunteer, and to visit the volunteer’s neighborhood to ensure that the safe house would be a reliable haven.

“What I like about [the program] is that it has built-in safeguards,” former Santa Clarita Mayor and former police officer George Pederson said about the program last year. “It’s not just volunteers who say, ‘My house is OK.’ ”

Now that other county sheriff’s stations are looking to implement the plan, the thing for the LAPD to do would be to contact Santa Clarita officials with an eye toward gauging their comfort level with the Safe House volunteer background check. Is it something that the LAPD and Los Angeles officials think that they could work with? It’s time to find out the answer to that question.

And should the LAPD decide that it would only be comfortable with a full federal criminal records check, the matter should not be dropped. What ought to be done is to figure out a way to pay for it.

It’s even possible that the $32 cost of the Justice Department checks could be passed onto the volunteer. Perhaps that isn’t so much to ask for the right to be given a position of such trust in the community.