18467: (Hermantin)Sun-Sentinel-Palm Beach County sheriff wants more deputies who speak Creole

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


Palm Beach County sheriff wants more deputies who speak Creole



By Akilah Johnson
Staff Writer

February 10, 2004

Lantana · In his first meeting with leaders in the Haitian-American
community, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ed Bieluch spent two hours fielding
questions about what he is doing to recruit more Creole-speaking deputies
and how the department can intervene with discipline problems between
parents and children.

As part of the sheriff's community leadership program, Friday's meeting --
held in a dimly lit Haitian restaurant -- was an effort to improve police
relations with the county's Haitian community, which traditionally have
suffered from language and cultural differences.

One of the major concerns voiced by the 75 attendees: American-born children
who manipulate the country's judicial system because they have a better
understanding of it than their immigrant parents.

Haitians discipline their children as they would in Haiti, but in the United
States it is often called child abuse and is against the law.

The result: Parents often end up afraid to discipline their children.

To combat this, the audience suggested the Sheriff's Office design an
educational program about what are acceptable forms of punishment and what
are not for children and parents. The other idea was to hire more Haitian
deputies.

"There are a lot of Haitians in jail right now [because] teens don't listen
to their parents based on the fact that there is a cultural thing going on
between them, [and] they use the system to back up their" accusations, Dr.
Pierre Paul Cadet of West Palm Beach told Bieluch during the
question-and-answer portion of the night.

The sheriff also responded to questions and comments from representatives of
the Haitian Citizen United Taskforce, Toussaint L'Ouverture High School in
Delray Beach and the Haitian American Community Council.

Amenable to both suggestions, Bieluch said his office would be willing to
put together a program of this sort.

He also said his office is actively recruiting Creole-speaking deputies, but
needs the community to help by identifying qualified applicants.

Diane Carhart, Bieluch's spokeswoman, said out of 1,200 sworn officers,
about five speak Creole.

The lack of Haitian deputies at the Sheriff's Office worries the president
of the Haitian American Law Enforcement Officers Association Inc., who said
the small number of Creole-speaking deputies isn't reflective of the
community at large.

"If you want to work with the community you need to have officers that are
able to communicate," said Officer Yves La Fontant of the Florida
International University police force.

There will be another meeting in four months to talk about the progress made
on these issues, Carhart said.

Akilah Johnson can be reached at akjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6645.
Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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