Volunteer Safety Patrol Organization - The Guardian Angels

Identified by their red berets and red bomber jackets, the volunteers of the Guardian Angels have taken community outreach and safety programs to new heights. What started in New York during the 1970s by Curtis Sliwa as a response to urban street crime has grown into an international organization.

The most visible force of the Guardian Angels is their highly respected safety patrols through urban neighborhoods, subway platforms, and areas where increases in crime are noted. The groups or chapters of Guardian Angels come up with their own patrol schedules and patterns based on the schedules of the volunteers and the areas of concern. Guardian Angels are trained in basic self defense, citizen's arrests, and how to work with police to lower crime. The Guardian Angels make it clear that they do not exist to work against police, but they understand that police can not be everywhere and can not see everything. As a rule, no member of the Guardian Angels is authorized to carry weapons of any kind while conducting a safety patrol. To make sure that members follow this guideline, all members are searched prior to starting a patrol.

The Guardian Angels also sponsor several other safety related programs besides just the safety patrols. The Guardian Angels Education Academy is aimed at educating students and educators on things such as bullying, gang resistance, violence prevention, and online safety.

The CyberAngels program was the response of Guardian Angels to an increase of Internet crimes, especially those against children. Started in 1995, the CyberAngels is one of the oldest online safety education programs in the world. At one point, CyberAngels volunteers would monitor chat room activities to make sure that conversations were kept clean, but the CyberAngels has slowly gotten away from monitoring chat rooms and now focuses on educating children and adults on the dangers of online predators.

The Urban Angels program is described as a gang and drug alternative for youths ages 12 to 16. Potential members for this program are students who are nominated by school teachers and principals as being those who need to improve their attendance or attitudes. Members of the group are taught the importance of community service and personal responsibility.

The last of the Guardian Angels programs, the Junior Angels, is an early prevention program aimed at youths ages 7 to 11. The program teaches members how to avoid pitfalls of peer pressure and how to recognize their own talents and interests.

Today, the Guardian Angels are active in thirteen countries and have approximately 140 chapters around the world.

Sources:

About the Angels. The Guardian Angels.