Seaford Police bridging gaps with immigrant community
SEAFORD, Del. – The Seaford Police Department is desperately looking for ways to bridge a gap between the department and the immigrant community.
“Whether it’s Haitian, Hispanic, African American, or whatever, it doesn’t matter,” said Seaford Police Chief Marshall Craft.
According to the Seaford Police Chief Marshall Craft crimes like domestic violence in the undocumented community will often go unreported because of the language barrier.
“There is a concern obviously that we have victims that aren’t reporting their crimes because they can’t communicate,” said Craft.
So, Chief Craft says he is looking to add a bilingual officer to the department for the first time as well as a new program that will help to address this issue.
“I’d like to create a cadet program of our own and try to staff that with someone from our Haitian population and our Hispanic population so we can bring Creole and Spanish and help bring more diversity into our agency,” said Craft.
Jose Santos a Seaford resident says these new changes are much needed. He says some immigrants tell him they fear police officers because they feel their livelihoods are threatened when they are near law enforcement.
“They mentioned that they felt a little bit of hostility towards police based of stuff they see on the news,” said Santos.
Santos adds growing up he noticed there was a big need for changes.
“I was the one that translated to the police officers for my parents and what was happening,” said Santos, “If I wasn’t there, they probably wouldn’t have called or they probably wouldn’t get their message across.”
It is something Chief Craft says he hopes to see fixed while bridging relationships for years to come.
“Anytime that you can infuse diversity in any agency and become more reflective of the community you serve you’re going to improve your trust based relationships,” said Craft.
Craft says he hopes to hire a bilingual officer within the next year. For more information about the Seaford Police Department click here.
