Public Safety - Possible Solutions in the Short- and Long-Term
Published in the October 2022 newsletter.
Dear friends, family, and constituents,
At District 3’s Public Safety Townhall, residents expressed justifiable fears and concerns towards the assaults, homicides, and robberies they have experienced first-hand in Oakland. Many residents recognized crime to be a consequence of entrenched structural conditions such as poverty and lack of housing, and want to see long-term investment in changing these conditions. They also want to see a more immediate change in the present moment.
How do we do this? We can organize around a “two-pronged” approach that includes solutions that can start TODAY and those which need to be nurtured and maintained in order to see fruition. Both are necessary.
As we consider how to create a world where crime is not manufactured; a world where crimes committed by the wealthy are seen and punished as vigorously as crimes of “lower castes'', it’s important to note that as long as we invest in crime fighting over EVERYTHING else, we will continue to create the conditions that got us here in the first place. The unspoken reality we’re experiencing is a growing number of people acting out the lived trauma of inequity, disinvestment, abuse and oppression. This is not an excuse, but an inevitable conclusion to the foundational practices of one of the most violent and discriminatory countries in the world.
This flawed process works in conjunction with a criminal justice system that rarely rehabilitates and often returns people back to the community institutionalized and more desperate than when they were incarcerated.
In The Short-Term
What are some immediate changes that can happen today? At the townhall and through the many conversations that followed, some suggestions have included:
Staff beats dramatically differently - Enlistments in America’s military AND police departments are at historic lows. This city and many others are struggling to meet even their budgeted numbers. The election rhetoric of getting to 900+ cops in Oakland is just that, and if more officers on the street are desired, reconfiguration of the existing structure is the fastest, most realistic AND most affordable way to get there. Currently some Oakland Police Department (OPD) roles such as investigators are city-wide, preventing them from both having an awareness of hyperlocal problems and the ability to address the issues residents are asking for. If a beat had 8 OPD members (5 beat officers, 1 sergeant, 1 problem-solving officer that works with the community to identify issues, such as the violence being inflicted on people living without shelter, and 1 investigator), each community within a beat would have more resources available to them with one-half of the current overall OPD staffing.
Staff the beats for longer assignments - Currently officers can change assignments each year, resulting in officers rarely getting to know the community and vice versa. Longer assignments will lead to officers becoming more effective in understanding the communities where they work, solving issues and doing their jobs.
Strengthen community organization in each beat - There is both a short-term and long-term nature to this, where we can promote diversity and membership in the current Neighborhood Council structure. Over time this work could also lead to hiring and training community members to lead community councils and support addressing the resource needs of each neighborhood on a block-by-block basis.
In The Long-Term
To paraphrase UC Berkeley Professor Nikki Jones at the townhall, we know that the young people who are most at risk of being targets or perpetrators of violence are those who are disconnected from school and similar social institutions, who have been hungry and very likely unhoused. This is the problem we need to solve if we ever hope for crime to reduce in the long run. As the third point above begins to lead us, we can do this by centering our public safety work around building a care-taking community, where we build up government services and social institutions. We have to address historic harms or accept the consequences.
Another concrete long-term strategy that does this type of work includes the Richmond Model that centers its work on creating “a beloved community.”* The model differs in a number of ways from traditional intervention programs such as Ceasefire, for example by creating actual city jobs with good benefits for the formerly incarcerated. The model has been correlated with a 71% reduction in gun violence by 2017 across the city since the creation of the Office of Neighborhood Safety in 2007.*
As I’ve stated on many occasions, we’ve been here before. We’ve seen the War On Drugs and we’ve seen the era of being tough on crime. The benefit of the long view is that we have also seen that there has NEVER been ongoing work on eradicating crime-creating conditions, but rather the opposite. We can’t make the problem just those who are committing the crimes. We need to make immediate changes to how we resource and police our communities now, while planting the seeds to actualize significant changes in the next decade and beyond.
I will be sharing more information about everything mentioned above through the next few newsletters including how one phrase allegedly upset the entire system of public safety in America: Defund the police. Stay tuned, but better yet, stay informed.
In service and solidarity,
Councilmember Carroll Fife
*The Chosen Ones: Black Men and the Politics of Redemption by Nikki Jones, pgs 172-3
District 3’s Public Safety Townhall
On October 8th, my District 3 office hosted a Public Safety Townhall where residents shared what public safety issues they have been observing, and city staff from Oakland Public Works, the Fire Department and the Police Department shared what services their departments are currently providing and plan to further develop in order to address these issues.
We greatly appreciated the contribution Professor Jones provided by sharing her insights from extensive research studying crime, policing, and Black youth. Many, including myself, appreciated her framing of centering public safety work on building a care-taking community.
You can find video news coverage of the townhall by FOX2 here and can view the livestream from the event, as well as a few clips, below.
