Sheriff's Department Offers Parents Tips on Keeping Children Out of Trouble

Deputies from the  agree: the best way to prevent children from getting in trouble is to start in the home.

In a bilingual community dialogue at the  auditorium on Dec. 6, the sheriff's department informed parents of the most common problems they encounter in local schools. The sheriffs then gave them pointers on how to find out if their children are engaging in these acts.

Maria Negrete, parent representative for Lynwood’s school site council, said due to the schools' budget crises, campus security has been cut. So parents are asking other parents for help.

“If we can’t get financial help for better results, we (parents) have to get involved,” she said.

As part of that effort, some parents reached out to the sheriff’s department to improve school safety for their children. 

“We want to protect our families, but the majority of the time, we don’t know how to do this,” said Juan Enciso, president of the Merchant’s Association of . “That is the reason we are here today—to get closer to our police officers which is the sheriff’s department.” 

Enciso said the community needs to know how the sheriff's department functions so that problems can be solved quickly.

“It’s important to know what the sheriff’s department has to offer us, but also what we can do for the sheriff's department,” he said.

Officers from the agency asked the parents at the community gathering for more involvement. They also asked the parents to help spread the word on what they can do to protect their children and support the department.

One of the most important steps parents can take is to check their children’s backpacks for weapons, drill bits, markers and graffiti papers, said Officer Oscar Contreras from the department's Century Station who led the discussion.

“I’m not talking about drawings, I’m talking about graffiti,” he said. “Usually when it’s on paper, it’s on walls.”

Contreras said children might take free labels from the post office, draw graffiti on them and stick them up anywhere.

Drill bits are another tool used for vandalism, Contreras said.  

He said children purchase drill bits at any hardware store and use them to scrape windows. They are “not neccesarily tagging; they’re scratching the windows with their crew’s name,” Contreras said. 

Police also regularly deal with fights, especially during after-school hours. 

Contreras said parents can see if their children are involved in brawls on YouTubeas many students tell their friends to record them as they fight and then post the video on the popular Web site. 

“Simply type ‘Lynwood fights’ on YouTube,” Contreras said. 

He said the best way to avoid fights is for parents to pick up their children daily as soon as school ends and take them home. 

To combat such activity, parents can encourage their children to get involved in sports, the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), or the Explorers Program offered by the.    

“If a child does not have anything to do, then they start looking for gangs that have plenty of stuff they could do,” Contreras said. 

Negrete said there will be more community discussions with the sheriff’s department and the campaign to rally more parents to get involved will continue. 

“I would like to see a conference between the sheriff’s department and students of every grade level so they (students) know what they are exposing themselves to when they create these problems outside or inside of school," she said.

She said students should know that getting in trouble with the law is not a game and "if something happens to them, it is marked on their record.”