Stranger Safety Submitted by: Police Officer Anthony Korn

Stranger Alert Program

The safety of our children is a community wide concern. While most children pass through childhood without ever experiencing physical harm, some are frightened or hurt by the actions of others. The Maywood Police Department along with the Maywood School system continually strives toward protecting our children. Although there have only been a handful of exposure incidents occurring within our community in the past ten years with the majority of incidents resulting in apprehension and arrest, your police department has in the past and continues to take a pro-active approach to prevent this type of incident from occurring.

Your police department currently has certain procedures and safeguards in place to hopefully deter and/or apprehend individuals involved in such incidents. One of the most important is the assigning of both marked and unmarked cars to patrol not only the immediate area of the schools, but more importantly cover the surrounding side streets that our children use before they approach the school. Our school guards have been instructed to look for and recognize suspicious vehicles and persons.

We are currently instituting the Stranger Alert program, recommended by Maureen Kanka, who many of you met during our Child Safety program at Maywood Avenue School just a few weeks ago. This program is basically a line of communication between the police, the schools and the parents. Whenever an incident is reported to the police involving suspicious behavior or confirmed exposure, the incident will be investigated and confirmed. Then all information available, including description of person and/or vehicle, will be given to the schools and they in turn will send home notices to you the parents.

The following safety tips will assist you in keeping our children safe:

• Children must take the safest route to school or to a friend's house.
• Encourage children to walk and play with friends, not alone.
• Teach children to walk confidently and to stay alert to what is going on around them.
• Tell you children to stay away from strangers who hang around schools and playgrounds.
• Teach your children to write down and report the license numbers of people who offer rides or appear to follow them.
• Have your child report any incident as soon as possible to any teacher, school guard or police officer.
• It is important that we take the time to listen carefully to our children's fears and feelings about people or places that scare them or make them feel uncomfortable.

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