Church pastors pray over Sheriff T.K. Waters and Sheriff's Office staff after the new Operation Safe Passage program was launched at Builders of the Faith Community Church on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on January 28, 2025 at 3:54 pm
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A citywide program began Tuesday to help young men and women get off a path toward crime and gang membership.
Operation Safe Passage is a new partnership between the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and local pastors to offer a structured plan that makes their sanctuaries safe places.
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Sheriff T.K. Waters began working with pastors in 2017 to find ways to help people leave a life of violence. He kicked off the Safe Passage program by affixing a Safe Passage decal at Builders of the Faith Community Church on Ricker Road.
With the decal, people will know it’s a place where they can find help if “you find yourself in trouble or in need of help and don’t know where to go,” Waters said.
“Not everyone wants to remain part of that life,” Waters said. “When they see this is here, they know this is a place they can come. … And when they come here, they can find the outreach, the support they need to start getting on the road to a life that’s going to be productive so they don’t find themselves in prison; they don’t find themselves, frankly speaking, dead because of the violence that happens on these streets.”
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Builders of the Faith Community Church is the first of 16 churches whose staff has been trained in the program. Pastor Robert Brown said he eagerly awaits the first people seeking help at their door. Then they can offer ways to transition out of gangs with counseling, education and finance management training, to “become better citizens,” he said.
“We need to work together to have better lives and better citizens,” Brown said. “We have been bridging gaps for a while, so I just see it as another way to bridge the gap. It is another opportunity to be the church.
“So when the door knock comes, we have myself and a couple of our elders who have gone through the training. We are ready to stand and to serve our community. We are ready to do what is needed to help these families get the help that they need.”
The new program is part of a Group Violence Intervention strategy that police started in 2017 to keep potential gang members safe, alive and out of prison.
The Sheriff’s Office’s Gang Unit, often joined by pastors, visit with people known to be active with local gangs. Called notifications, the visits warn them they face jail or worse if they don’t leave the lifestyle, and then offer ways to get out of it, Waters said.
Police hope to have up to 50 local churches enrolled in Operation Safe Passage by the end of the year, Brown said.
Joining the sheriff and others at Tuesday’s announcement was the Rev. Garland Scott, a former New York City gang member who is part of the Sheriff’s Office and works with its intervention teams. He told pastors that this church program is not interested in enforcement, but intervention, jobs and education options. “You are not cops,” he said.
“You can come here and it connects everything. But in order to be a partner in this, it is not a simple process,” Scott said. “You must go on three mandatory notifications. Next you must undergo an eight-hour training class, called GVI Outreach, outside of your church, Pastors have to be trained on how to deal with this population because we mostly deal with spiritual things. But this happens on the outside.”
The decals going on church doors also will have a contact number for Scott, so someone seeking help can set up a meeting with that church’s pastor, he said.
Churches interested in the program can contact Scott at garland.scott@jaxsheriff.org.
