The Safe Place Program and SPD

The Seattle Police Department's Safe Place Program is designed for ALL HATE CRIMES.

  In the City of Seattle that includes: Race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, mental, physical, or sensory disabilities, homelessness, marital status, political ideology, age, or parental status.

 The members of the Seattle Police Department strive to serve all members of our community. We work collaboratively with our communities to have an understanding of what challenges minority communities may face. The Safe Place program is a partnership between the Police Department and businesses. It gives victims of bias or hate crimes a Safe Place to go after their incident, where the business will give them shelter while they call for help.  

This program does two things. First, it lets your patrons know where you stand on bias and hate crimes because hate has no place in our communities. But more importantly, it says to any victim: That no matter your background or status you will be heard, you will be treated with care, dignity, and respect from the business you enter, as well as from the Police Officers who respond out to investigate. It starts the long process of empowering the victim to report their incident to the Police so we can properly investigate the crime. Suspects depend on putting and keeping the victims and the community in fear, allowing them to further victimize others. Standing up to these suspects gets them off the street and strengthens your community! 

 Becoming a Safe Place business is FREE!  You will be sent a Safe Place sticker, training materials, and flyers all at no cost to you or your business/school. To become a new Safe Place Business, you need to train your employees to do two things of a victim if a crime comes in:

1)    Let the victim stay in a safe (public) area of your business.

2)    Call 911 as soon as possible to report their incident.  

The Safe Place Program was created to start bridging that gap between victims of hate crimes and the police.  We acknowledge a very tumultuous past, and we are the ones that need to take that first step in letting the world know where The Seattle Police Department stands on hate and bias crimes.

The Seattle Police Department is dedicated to supporting quality public safety and being a full partner with other parts of the criminal justice system and assisting witnesses and crime victims throughout the process and delivering respectful police services by treating people the way you want to be treated. 

If you have been a victim of a bias or hate crime and time have passed, it is not too late we still want to know about it!
Please call our non-emergency line at (206) 625-5011 and have an Officer come out and take your report.   We cannot address what we do not know about.    

POLICY:   

The Seattle Police Department has been a recognized national leader in policies and procedures and enacting some of the first transgender policies in the nation with assistance with our partnerships with community groups. SPD has continued to update with best patterns and practices from across the nation. SPD Policy 16.200. This policy helps protect the rights and dignity of our LGBTQ+ community members.  

The Seattle Police Department has focused on the accurate reporting of any bias or hate crime reporting so that any incident reported to an Officer or 911 call taker is properly documented, with near real-time notifications to Detectives and Command staff that a bias or hate crime incident occurred. SPD Policy 15.120  

The Seattle Police Department also has a robust bias-free policing policy SPD Policy 5.140. Prohibiting Officers from engaging in biased based policing, discriminating against any person based on "discernible personal characteristics" include, but are not limited to, the following: Age, Disability Status, Economic status, Familial status, Gender, Gender Identity, Homelessness, Mental illness, National origin, Political ideology, Race, ethnicity, or color, Religion, Sexual orientation, motorcycle-related paraphernalia, or Veteran status.  

It is the Seattle Police Department's intent to foster trust and cooperation with all people served by the Department, including immigrant and refugee residents. The Department encourages any person who wishes to communicate with Seattle Police officers to do so without fear of inquiry regarding their immigration status. Seattle Police Officers will not ask about immigration status and reporting an incident to us will not be reported or shared with immigration services. SPD Policy 6.020  Seattle is continuing to be a national leader by having Detective Wearing, a dedicated Detective to investigate Bias and Hate Crimes that works out of our Homicide unit. Learn more about our Bias Crimes unit. We also publish our Bias/Hate Crime information and have a Bias/Hate Crime Dashboard.    

OTHER LANGUAGES:  

The Seattle Police Department Safe Place Stickers and documentation is now available in 6 languages! Chinese, English, Korean, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese.  Order your sticker HERE. When ordering please be sure to select the language you would like to display, if you would like multiple languages please email the Safe Place Administrator. 

Information on how to report a crime has been translated and is available in Amharic, Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Oromo, Somali, Spanish, Tigrnya, Traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese.  

Both 9-1-1 and the non-emergency line ((206) 625-5011) take phone calls and Officers can take reports in over 140 different languages.

When you call 911 our call takers will utilize a language line so you can speak the language you are most comfortable utilizing.  When Officers arrive with you, they will utilize their department cellphone to utilize the language line again so you can continue to use the language you feel most comfortable in to report your incident. This also includes the use of in-person ASL interpreters. SPD Policy 15.250   

SAFE PLACE IN SCHOOLS I STUDENT BULLING 

Safe Place is authorized for both schools, businesses in proximity to schools, and now individual teachers/rooms within the school. Teachers may utilize the Safe Place program for their individual classrooms to denote that your classroom is a Safe Place to go for Student Bullying within the school. Schools and Individual Teachers may sign up for their classrooms HERE.   

Enacting this Program in other cities. 

 The Safe Place initiative has been licensed and enacted by nearly 300 Law Enforcement Agencies large and small across the United States, Canada, and Europe giving hundreds of thousands of Safe Places for victims of bias or hate crimes to get help.   

This program brings training and policy requirements for each law enforcement agency, making our communities a more understanding inclusive, safer place to visit, live, work and thrive!

For law enforcement agencies interested in enacting the Safe Place initiative in your jurisdictions please follow the directions in the Law Enforcement link.   

Thank you for taking the time to learn about the Seattle Police Departments Safe Place initiative a copy-written and trademarked program for more information see the links below.  For new businesses, you can sign your location up for free HERE.