Task 5. Complaint Procedures for IAD (Internal Affairs Division)

Task 5, addressing IAD procedures, has 21 sub-tasks. But the monitor has usually found the City in compliance with all the sub-tasks except 5.15, 5.16, 5.18 and 5.19. The NSA describes the elements of sub-tasks 5.15 and 5.16 as follows:

In each complaint investigation, OPD shall consider all relevant evidence, including circumstantial, direct and physical evidence, and make credibility determinations, if feasible. OPD shall make efforts to resolve, by reference to physical evidence, and/or use of follow-up interviews and other objective indicators, inconsistent statements among witnesses.

At some point in the past, either the parties negotiated or the monitor decided on compliance standards  for many of the open tasks, and the standard for this one is 85%. But this standard seems to have evolved beyond a requirement that the City accomplish sub-tasks 5.15 and 5.16 85% of the time.  Instead, the monitor now reviews the substance of  OPD’s resolution of the complaint and requires OPD to be in compliance with the monitor’s judgment in  85% of the cases. In other words, the monitor measures OPD’s judgment against his own, and if they don’t match, the monitor finds non-compliance.

For each quarter, the monitor reviews a sample of 25 citizen complaints for both literal conformance to the NSA and the monitor’s agreement with the department’s findings. And usually the monitor concludes that in more than 15% of the sampled cases (i.e., more than 3 ) he disagrees with IAD’s credibility assessment.

Similarly, in the last two reports, the monitor found non-compliance in tasks 5.18 and 5.19, which are follows:

OPD shall resolve each allegation in a complaint investigation using the “preponderance of the evidence” standard. Each allegation shall be resolved by making one of the following dispositions: Unfounded, Sustained, Exonerated, Not Sustained, or Administrative Closure.

The compliance standards for “preponderance of the evidence standard” resolution and designation as “Unfounded,” “Sustained,” etc. are 90% and 95%, respectively.  But this apparently means the monitor must agree with the resolution and designation 90% and 95% of the time. In the latest sampling of 25 cases, the monitor disagreed with 3 resolutions, so the City was non-compliant with Task 5.18.  The monitor disagreed with OPD’s designation of 14 out of  71 allegations (19.7%), so the City  was non-compliant with Task 5.19.

Since compliance with Task 5 apparently requires the monitor’s agreement with the resolutions and designations, it is hard to see how the City will ever be in compliance with this Task.

Task 20. Span of Control of Supervisors

The NSA provides:

Under normal conditions, OPD shall assign one primary sergeant to each Area Command Field Team, and, in general, (with certain exceptions) that supervisor’s span of control shall not exceed eight (8) members.

and

During day-to-day operations, in the absence of the primary supervisor (e.g., due to sickness, vacation, compensatory time off, schools, and other leaves), the appropriate Area Commander shall determine, based on Department policy and operational needs, whether or not to backfill for the absence of the sergeant on leave.

The compliance standard for this one is 85%.  In other words, the supervisor should be the officers’ regular supervisor (not back-filled, substituted for, etc.) 85% of the time. Over the past 5 reports, Oakland has been out of compliance with this 85% standard by small amounts, most recently 2%.   With the twin problems of budget cuts and an ever-shrinking police force, it seems likely that the scrambling to back-fill when people go on sick leave or vacation or quit, etc. will only increase. Thus, the City is not likely to meet this standard in the future.

Task 24. Use of Force Reporting Policy

Before discussing this Task, under which the City is almost always found to be out of compliance with three sub-tasks, it is worth quoting the relevant parts of the NSA requirement, which requires adoption and implementation of policies and procedures for “use of force notification and reporting.”  Oakland’ police must require the following:

1. Members/employees notify their supervisor as soon as practicable following any investigated use of force or allegation of excessive use of force.
2. In every investigated use of force incident, every member/employee using force, and every member/employee on the scene of the incident at the time the force was used, shall report all uses of force on the appropriate form, unless otherwise directed by the investigating supervisor.
3. OPD personnel document, on the appropriate form, any use of force and/or the drawing and intentional pointing of a firearm at another person.
4.  A supervisor respond to the scene upon notification of an investigated use of force or an allegation of excessive use of force, unless community unrest or other conditions makes this impracticable.
5. OPD notify:

a. The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office immediately or as soon as circumstances permit, following a use of lethal force resulting in death or injury likely to result in death.

b. The City Attorney’s Office as soon as circumstances permit following the use of lethal force resulting in death or serious injury. At the discretion of the City Attorney’s Office, a Deputy City Attorney shall respond to the scene. The Deputy City Attorney shall serve only in an advisory capacity and shall communicate only with the incident commander or his/her designee.

c. Departmental investigators regarding officer-involved shootings, in accordance with the provisions of Section V, paragraph H, of this Agreement.

d. OPD enter data regarding use of force into OPD’s Personnel Assessment System (PAS).

(Emphasis added).

So these  are reporting requirements. Officers must report when there is any use of force, including drawing guns “immediately or as soon as practicable.” Officers never report as soon as the monitor thinks they should. In the most recent report, the monitor finds 5 hours 15 min. too long. As the department continues to shrink and officers are stretched thinner, this is not apt to improve.

But the monitor’s approach to sub-tasks 24.2 and 24.3 is more disconcerting.  These are paper work requirements involving use of force.  And most recently, the monitor found the City in compliance “with the reporting requirements only.”  (Emphasis in the original document.) There is nothing in these sub-tasks but reporting requirements.  Nonetheless, the monitor found the City out of compliance because, out of 162 instances of drawn firearms, “[w]e are unable to find the pointing of a firearm necessary or justified in 21 instances, or 16%, of the 162 instances we assessed, due to the absence of any indication that the officer(s) or others faced imminent threat of harm.” Furthermore, the fact that supervisors found these uses of force appropriate “is illustrative of a need to address supervisory deficiencies.”

We have no idea whether police drawing of firearms in particular cases is or is not appropriate. We certainly agree the pointing guns is a serious matter, and we don’t think officers should draw weapons unnecessarily.  It  seems unlikely officers will be right in 100% of these incidents.

We were not present for the discussions between the attorneys, the monitors and the Court over the past nine years, and we admit we haven’t reviewed all 600+ pleadings in the case, so we do not know if the City at some point acquiesced in, or agreed to, the evolution from reporting requirements to “correct judgment” requirements.

But we find nothing in Task 24, or in the NSA, where the City agreed to have the monitor, or the court, pass judgment on the appropriateness of every officer action in the field. Since the standard seems to have become the monitor’s subjective, after-the-fact evaluation of officer actions in the face of perceived threats, it seems doubtful the City will ever be in compliance.

In our next installment, we will look four more tasks, related to Stops and Detentions, Discipline Policy and the Department’s Personnel Assessment System.

This is the first in a series of posts in which Make Oakland Better Now! is going to take a deep look at the areas where Oakland cannot seem to comply with the NSA and why it cannot do so.  After that, we will take a look at another jurisdiction – Los Angeles – that transformed itself from a Ramparts scandal-ridden failed department into “the national and international policing standard for activities that range from audits to handling of the mentally ill to many aspects of training to risk assessment of police officers and more,“  and experienced a dramatic reduction in crime as well. And finally, we will look at what it could mean to Oakland and to public safety if the Federal Court places the police department into receivership.

Where Oakland Stands on NSA Compliance

The original NSA, signed by the parties in January, 2003, contained 51 tasks, with various levels of complexity and a range of deadlines, the last of which was September, 2005.  The NSA provided for monitoring for five years, or for two years more “only if the Court determines it is reasonably necessary in order for the Monitor to fulfill his/her duties pursuant to this agreement.”  The five-year monitoring period was extended by two years in 2008.  The NSA expired in 2010, but because the City was still not in compliance, the parties signed, and the Court approved, a two-year Memorandum of Understanding extending monitoring and Court supervision as to the twenty-two tasks for which the City was out of Compliance.  In June of last year, it was clear the City would not be in full compliance by January, 2012, so the parties signed an Amended Memorandum of Understanding extending monitoring as to 13 of the tasks until January, 2014.  At the conclusion of the NSA and its replacement by the first MOU in 2010, the parties jointly selected Robert S. Warshaw of Police Performance Solutions, LLC as the monitor.

The most recent monitoring report – Mr. Warshaw’s eighth – creates a snapshot of only a three month period.  To give us a broader view, Paula Hawthorne and Bruce Nye of MOBN! conducted a meta-study of Mr. Warshaw’s fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth monitoring reports to see what the patterns were and try to determine where the failings occur.  They found that of the twenty-two tasks being monitored for the past two years, there were nine where Oakland had been in compliance for the past five quarters.  There was one (Field Training Program) which the monitor has deferred for the past five quarters.  There were seven tasks for which the compliance situation varied from quarter to quarter (sometimes in compliance, sometimes out of compliance, sometimes partial compliance).  There were five tasks where Oakland was consistently able to achieve only  “partial compliance.”

In the past, the monitor, City and Plaintiffs have negotiated various standards for compliance (e.g., 85%, 90%, yes or no, etc.) that do not actually appear in the NSA. Under these standards, and in the current environment, it seems unlikely Oakland will come into full compliance any time soon.  In our next two posts, we will discuss some of the more problematic areas.

In the meantime, here are some helpful links on the subject of the NSA:

Oakland North’s summary of how we got from the Riders suit to the NSA.

East Bay Express’s article on what receivership might mean.

The Negotiated Settlement Agreement.

Oakland Police Department Reports Page, including all monitor reports.

Judge Henderson’s January, 2012 Order

January, 2012 Joint Status Conference Statement in Delphine Allen v. City of Oakland

• The plan eliminates 105 positions. Twenty-three of these are in the Department of Public Works and 6.7 in Parks and Recreation; a reduction of recreation center hours would take place also.  The narrative description says the plan eliminates the head of Information Technology (a vacant position) and the head of the Department of Human Services, although whether this latter elimination will actually take place is not clear from the accompanying spread sheets.
• Reductions of sworn police or fire personnel are not possible under the contracts between the City and the public safety unions, so there are no police or fire layoffs in the proposal.  Parking enforcement apparently gets moved from Finance to the Police Department. There are some consolidations between the two departments, and—as happens in nearly every budget discussion—a proposal to eliminate Neighborhood Safety Coordinators (this time 4 out of 9).
• There are no reductions to Human Services or Library programs.
• The one area of the plan that is largely undefined involves significant reductions to the Mayor’s office, City Council and City Attorney.  In each case, the proposal reduces each of these departments by “40% of Department’s Redevelopment Budget,” but offers no guidance on what the reductions might actually involve.  Unlike recent budget adjustment proposals, this one does not suggest a reduction to the City Auditor’s office.  The City Auditor has, by far, the lowest budget of any elected official.
• KTOP, the City’s television station, faces very significant cuts.  It is not clear how this will affect the station’s ability to broadcast and archive public meetings, an important issue for government transparency.
• The proposal substantially reduces City subsidies in 2012-13 for Children’s Fairyland (a reduction of $54,600) Hacienda Peralta (a reduction of $18,360) and the Oakland Zoo (a reduction of $216,000).
• The Community & Economic Development Agency (CEDA) is dissolved.
• The plan establishes an “Administrative Services Agency” to assume consolidated administrative functions related to the Finance & Management Agency, Department of Human Resources Management, Department of Information Technology, and the City Administrator’s Office.
• The plan establishes a new “Community Services Department,” entirely focused on direct service to residents, which assumes responsibilities of the existing Office of Parks & Recreation and Department of Human Services, along with other services.

To their credit, the Mayor and City Administrator also highlight some very difficult and politically volatile issues the City will have to face to accomplish long-term budget reform. Some examples:

On the impact of voter mandates:

Ballot Measures—The City’s ballot measures that support the library system and youth programs (Kids First) should be evaluated by the City Council to determine if there is a more modem structure that allows for the City to continue to fund library and youth services, but not at the levels envisioned when the City experienced better fiscal conditions. The past budget cycles have been particularly burdened by the requirements to fund the libraries at a certain level ($9M) in order to be eligible for voter approved funds ($14M).  Additionally, the youth services funded by the Kids First measure requires that a certain percent be taken from the General Purpose Fund, but the base year is set at a time when revenues were higher; the The Measure does not allow the baseline or the set-aside percent to fluctuate based on current economic conditions experienced by the City.

On restrictions on contracting out services:

Contracting In and Out—The City Charter, Title 2-Administration and Personnel, Chapter 2.04.020 (E) (Authority of the City Administrator) has the following provision:

(3) Loss of Employment or Salary. Contracts for professional services or service-only shall not result in the loss of employment or salary by any person having permanent status in the competitive service.

This provision does not allow the City to contract out for services offered by the City, yet available in the local market; however, it should be acknowledged that some services are already obtained through this model. Many local govemments have begun the process of outsourcing services traditionally offered through civil service and procuring such services from local and regional markets. The City could look at the whole issue of both contracting in-and out services for the purpose of identifying cost savings and stabilizing services.

On benefits:

Convene Labor Management Committee on Healthcare—Staff can convene the Labor Management Committee to explore strategies related to healthcare benefits provided to the workforce. Possible options for evaluation could include: increased cost sharing, reduced benefit level, increased co-payments, reduced health and dental in-lieu payments, and/or eliminate dual coverage. Estimated cost savings could not be determined until analysis has been completed and direction is set by the City Council.

Employee Benefits—Similar to the above effort, cost containment strategies related to the level of employee benefits could be further explored. Possible options for consideration could include:

retirement (e.g., pension and retiree healthcare); sick leave payout structure; premium pays or pay associated with certificates, education levels, etc; and, compensation structure (e.g., step increases, overtime eligibility, salary ranges, etc.). Estimated cost savings could not be determined until analysis has been completed and direction is set by the City Council.

Council member De La Fuente is hosting a program on the budget cuts for constituents Tonight at 6:00 p.m. at St. Jarlath’s Church/School Campus, 2634 Pleasant Street in the school auditorium (at Fruitvale Ave just below I 580) .  Council member Brunner is hosting a similar program, also Tonight, at 7:00 p.m. at North Oakland Senior Center, 5714 Martin Luther King.

Panelists  include Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker, Max Neiman from UC Berkeley’s Institute for Governmental Studies and Professor Cory Cook, Department of Politics, University of San Francisco.  More information in the flyer below:

When I was mayor of Oakland, I built a lot of good things. I liked redevelopment. Didn’t quite understand it; seemed kind of magical. It was the money that you could spend on stuff that they wouldn’t otherwise let you spend.

— California Governor   (and former Oakland Mayor)  Jerry Brown, quoted on NPR.

Oakland’s operations budget just shrank by $26 million.  What is the City going to do about it?  That’s a big part of what was at stake in the Redevelopment Agencies’ lawsuit against the State, which the State won today.

Here’s what happened:  California has about 400 redevelopment agencies.  Their mission is to clear and replace blight and to provide low and moderate income housing.  The Oakland Redevelopment Agency, like many others, is run by the City Council, whose members are also directors of the agency.  Although  Oakland has not yet published a Redevelopment Agency Budget for 2011-12 (and it isn’t clear to us if the City Council has adopted such a budget), the Oakland Redevelopment Agency Budget for 2010-11 was about $127 million. By law, redevelopment agencies are funded primarily by “tax increment,” the portion of property taxes generated by increasing the assessed value of redeveloped property.  Planned redevelopment projects in Oakland include the Coliseum and MacArthur BART transit villages and Oakland Army Base development.  A new A’s stadium has been discussed as a potential redevelopment project if the A’s do not leave for San Jose, although there is some doubt about whether there could be sufficient funding for any significant portion of a stadium.

But Oakland didn’t just use it’s redevelopment funds for tearing down and building things.  About $26 million per year from the Redevelopment Agency goes toward Oakland’s operational expenses.  RDA funds pay for 17 police officers, large portions of the City Council and Mayor’s offices, more than 10 employees each in the City Administrator’s and City Attorney’s offices and 83 employees in CEDA.  All told, for 2011-12, RDA funds are budgeted to pay for 159 FTE’s outside the Agency.

For years, the legislature would routinely reroute tax increment monies to the State to help balance California’s budget.  So in 2010, the agencies sponsored, and the voters passed, Proposition 22, which amended the State Constitution by prohibiting the State’s  “raiding” of redevelopment funds.

To balance this year’s, and future years’ budgets, the California legislature passed two redevelopment-related bills.  The first (AB 26X1)  abolished redevelopment agencies effective October 1 of this year, stopping new projects and rerouting the tax increment not needed for existing agency debt to schools and other districts.  The second (AB27X1) exempted cities and counties from the dissolution  if they made annual payments to the state to be allocated among schools and districts.  According to the State Department of Finance, Oakland’s payment for 2011-12 would be $39.6 million.  Clearly, AB27X1 was intended to mitigate the impact of AB26X1.  We understand Oakland planned to pay this out of redevelopment funds.

This morning, the California Supreme Court issued its ruling upholding the abolition of the agencies.  But it also invalidated the mitigation measure as a violation of Proposition 22.

Regardless of what one thinks of the redevelopment process or the Oakland RDA, this seems to constitute an enormous hit to the City’s General Purpose fund.  The $26 million loss is more than 2 1/2 times the amount of the recent, failed parcel tax.  Put differently, the total budget for the mayor, city council, city administrator, city clerk and city auditor totals about $24.7 million.  The loss of redevelopment dollars the City planned to use for operational expenses is even more than that.

Throughout 2011, Mayor Quan has repeatedly warned of the dire consequences of having to make the payments required by the now voided   AB27X1.  But the recently released Adopted Policy Budget for the City (warning — large, slow-loading file) does not appear to contain any contingency for losing the RDA altogether.  It has been clear at least since the Supreme Court’s hearing that this was a distinct possibility.  Oakland needs to hear from its leadership what the plan is to fill the void.

This Thursday evening, Oakland City Auditor Courtney Ruby and First District State Board of Equalization Member Betty Yee present what promises to be a very valuable workshop on these issues:

Pension Reform Explained

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Time:    6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Place:    Oakland City Hall

1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza

Oakland, CA 94612

City Auditor Ruby’s staff tell us there will be two guest speakers providing 20-30 minute presentations on pension reform from the administrative (CalPERS) and ballot initiative (Proposition C, San Francisco) perspectives.  After the presentations, the program will shift to a Q&A/discussion period moderated by Board of Equalization Member Yee and Auditor Ruby.

Confirmed speakers:

Alan Milligan, Chief Actuary, CalPERS

Mr. Milligan serves as Chair of the Californian Actuarial Advisory Panel, which provides information to the Legislature, Governor, public retirement systems, and other public agencies on pensions and other post-employment benefits, as well as guidance for best practices.

Micki Callahan, Human Resource Director, City and County of San Francisco

Ms. Callahan is a recognized expert on pension systems and San Francisco’s Proposition C, a pension reform measure passed last month by San Francisco voters.

Guess what? We actually started a Kennedy-inspired violence-reduction program here in Oakland. We called the heart of the program “call-ins.” It was operated by Oakland’s Department of Human Services together with the police, Oakland Community Organizations (“OCO”) and with Measure-Y funded “outreach workers.”  

In the spring of 2010, OCO put together one of its “actions” to bring attention to the need for more funding for the “call-ins.” OCO asked for $1 million to save young lives. Three Councilmembers (Quan, Kaplan and Reid) attended the action.  All spoke enthusiastically about the program.  None promised funding.  

But Oakland received literally millions of dollars from the State and Federal government to support the Call-in program. As described on the Governor’s web site: 

Oakland Gang Reduction, Intervention, and Prevention Program (O-GRIPP) will build upon the City’s Measure Y, a $20 million per year investment in crime reduction, to implement a strategy modeled after the Boston Operation Ceasefire project.  O-GRIPP will target six contiguous police beats in West Oakland.  It will fund a data analyst, case manager, expanded involvement of the Mayor’s Street Outreach Coordinator and a targeted community education message.  It will also form a West Oakland Public Safety Council that will be the focus of neighborhood crime reduction planning.  O-GRIPP will use data from probation, parole and police to identify gang-involved individuals and invite them to Call-Ins where law enforcement will outline sanctions for future violence, and job support service programs and employers will offer training, services and jobs. 

But the program really never got off the ground.  First, it operated mostly as a program offering social services, not the kind of “carrot and stick” program envisioned by Cease Fire.  Second, it brought in ridiculously small numbers of participants.  From September, 2009 until June, 2011, there were 15 call-ins, with a total of only 113 participants.  Two of the call-ins yielded only one participant.  By comparison, we understand a recent Bakersfield call-in had 350 participants. 

The call-in program did not measure violence reduction.  Instead, the goal seemed to be how many participants received job or education referrals, obtained jobs, received transportation passes, legal services, resume assistance, etc.  So the one reason for this violence reduction strategy – reducing firearm violence – has never been measured. 

And then we abandoned the program.  The police declined to participate further.  And nobody seems to know what, if anything, will happen next. 

As Kennedy puts it, dealing with the “bad” guys is not the problem–we do know how to deal with them, justly and effectively. The problem is dealing with the “good” guys–the well-intended but short-sighted elected officials who fail to properly manage programs and fail to provide ongoing support. 

Violent crime in Boston, after it declined greatly for a few years, came back up. The Kennedy-style programs were stopped. Now the programs are starting up again. Oakland’s program barely got started and then had implementation problems, so it was dropped. According to Oakland Deputy Police Chief Ersie Joyner, our problem was finding jobs for the young criminals who wanted to abandon violence and change their lives. So we dropped the program. 

Here we are, well into a fifth decade of more than 100 homicides on average annually in Oakland. There is plenty of evidence that properly implemented cease-fire programs really work. Indeed, one of Kennedy’s colleagues in violence-reduction program development has his office here in crime-ridden Oakland–he is Stewart Wakeling of the Public Health Institute. 

As with so many of Oakland’s problems, what we are lacking is the leadership and focus of our “good” guys. We need to deal effectively with our “good” guys so that we can start dealing  effectively with the bad ones.

These are important issues of the moment.  But once they have faded, Oaklanders will still have to face the fact that their city has the fifth highest crime rate in the United States and its homicide rate is on a pace to hit 107 in 2011.  With a twenty percent drop in sworn officers and plans to reduce police staffing even further, Oakland has no meaningful plan to reverse these trends and address the largest problem our City faces.

In the next week to ten days, we will be talking about a true gun violence reduction strategy that has worked in ten other American cities.  This strategy does not require an enormous influx of police officers.  The strategy acknowledges what Oakland politicians have long said: that you “can’t arrest your way out” of violent crime and that the continued incarceration of young, poor black men is getting us nowhere.  The strategy depends on a coordination of strict, police-enforced rules of conduct, availability of social services and most importantly, an understanding of this fundamental fact:  the people involved in most of our violent crime absolutely hate the violence.

Members of our community who believe that only policing will end crime will have a difficult time with what is sometimes disparagingly referred to as the “hug a thug” aspects of this strategy.  Activists who believe on ideological grounds that police are the problem and not the solution will likewise object.

But neither side of this debate can quarrel with what the numbers show.  This strategy results in dramatic reductions of violent crime for as long as the strategy is followed.  And the crime rate goes right back up again when the strategy is abandoned.

Today we talk about the strategy and its measured results.  In part II, we will talk about Oakland’s “Call-In” program, why it doesn’t work, and how it can be fixed.  And in part III, we will talk about lessons Oakland can learn from other cities.

Don’t Shoot

 Last month, David Kennedy, a criminologist at New York’s John Jay College, spoke in Oakland and elsewhere locally about proven methods for reducing urban violence, especially among young men involved in gangs. Kennedy’s book, Don’t Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America describes dramatic successes in reducing homicides and other violent acts by 50% within a short period of time in Boston and in other cities. A shorter version of Kennedy’s story, from the June 22, 2009 New Yorker, is available here.

At first blush, the Kennedy strategy seems naïve.  But it actually works.  While the strategy varies from city to city, the basic components are these:  Young gang members are asked to come to a meeting of community members, clergymen, local officials, city and federal law enforcement officers. At these “call-ins” the young people are told that there is enough evidence of their criminal activities to put them in jail. They are also told that all the community members and others present care about them and believe that they are essentially good people with potential to live socially productive lives. They are offered help to learn how to get along in mainstream society, and to contribute to it without violence. They are offered the choice of jail or joining society.

This is a carrot and stick strategy.  Gang members are told that if they continue their violent ways, law enforcement will come down on them like a ton of bricks.  If they renounce violence, the community will make job, remedial education and other services available to them.  It is essential that “you don’t write checks you can’t cash.”  This means that both services and suppression have to be fully available.

As Kennedy said at his presentations, “We know how to end violence in our communities.”  These programs really seem to work.  The programs have been tried in eleven different communities.  While the programs and the metrics have differed, the outcomes have almost always been remarkable:

Study                                                              Main Outcome

Boston Operation Ceasefire                          -63% youth homicide

Indianapolis IVRP                                            -34% total homicide

Stockton Operation Ceasefire                     -42% gun homicide

Lowell PSN                                                          -44% gun assaults

Cincinnati CIRV                                                -36% GMI  involved homicides

Newark Ceasefire                                              NS  reduction gunshot wound incidents

LA Operation Ceasefire                                  Sig short-term red. violent gun crime

Chicago PSN                                                        -37% homicide, -30% recidivism rate

Nashville DMI                                                  -56% reduction drug offenses

Rockford DMI                                                  -22% non-violent offenses

Hawaii HOPE                                                     -26% recidivism rate

Source:  Braga & Weisburd, 2011, The Campbell Collaboration, The Effects of the Approach on Crime.

Kennedy observes that this strategy does not work if it is looked at as another program.  It needs to be a way of life.  If it is a “program,” cities eventually stop using it, and the crime begins to rise again.  This happened in Boston and many of the other cities where the strategy initially had success.  The strategy requires institutional memory and the departments implementing it must take the long view.

In our next post, we will talk about Oakland’s version of the Kennedy-inspired violence reduction strategy.

Tomorrow, October 29 at 10:00 a.m. at 1148 E. 18th Street, Suite 10, Make Oakland Better Now! co-hosts the kickoff meeting for two critical signature gathering campaigns, one for City Council term limits and one for a budget reform charter amendment imposing a rainy day fund – a forced savings account – on the City once its finances begin to recover.

Those of you receiving this message – the 300+ of you on our e-mail list and the 400+ members of our Facebook Group – have already heard about these measures and tomorrow’s event. But this is a special request to all of you from the MOBN! board – please come out on Saturday; we really need you.

For the past 27 months, here are some of the things we have done:

• In our posts, first at our web site and now at Oaktalk, we brought you information about what’s going on in City Hall and ideas about how to make our City a safer and better functioning place to live and work.

• In our “Tasty Pastry” series, we brought you detailed information about Oakland’s budgetand its budget processes.

• During the Mayor’s race, we obtained answers to detailed questionnaires from nearly allhe mayoral candidates (including all the major candidates). Unlike many unions and other organizations who use candidate questionnaires, we made ours available to the public, publishing them on Oaktalk and at Oakland Local.

• We are continuing our efforts to be effective advocates at City Hall for the manyOaklanders who believe the crime rate in our beautiful city is morally unacceptable,that our streets cannot be allowed to continue to crumble, that the culture of governmental secrecy must stop, and the broken budget process must be fixed.

Our next step is something we cannot do alone. We need boots on the ground, and that means we need you.

We realize term limits and this budget reform won’t come close to solving all of Oakland’s problems. And in the coming months, you will be hearing from us about more measures. But these are the first steps we must take in order to end the political atrophy at City Hall and prevent our elected officials from engaging in the repeated overpromising and overspending that has caused our current predicament.

We have less than six months to collect almost 40,000 signatures in order to place these measures on the 2012 ballot. This will take hard work, dedication and many, many volunteers. The road to real reform will be a long one. But we take our first steps tomorrow.

Please join us.

If you can make it and you haven’t told us already, please RSVP to

Oaklanders@MakeOaklandBetterNow.org.

If you can’t make it tomorrow but you still want to help, please send an e-mail with that information to Oaklanders@MakeOaklandBetterNow.org. One of our organizers will contact you soon.

Thanks for any help you can give. We look forward to working with you as we Make Oakland Better.

Sincerely,

The Make Oakland Better Now! Executive Board

Professor Zimring presented a chart categorizing changes in New York policing as either effective, probably effective, unknown as to effectiveness or not implemented.  The changes, categorization and his comments are as follows:

Professor Zimring identified a number of other important findings, some of which are critical for Oakland. Among these:

From 1990 to 2006, jailing and imprisonment nationwide increased by 63%. In New York, it decreased 21%. By 2006, the incarceration rate in New York was half that of the country as a whole. So its not that incarceration decreases crime. The opposite is true: decreasing crime decreases incarceration, and its very substantial cost. And conceptually, of course, decreasing the cost of incarceration makes money available for many other government services, including, potentially, more police.

Also, while decreasing crime in the population as a whole, New York decreased it among previously convicted persons even more. In 1985, the New York recidivism rate (defined as reconviction by persons incarcerated for felonies in the previous three years) was 21%. By 1990, it had climbed to 28%. In 2005, it had dropped to 10%, a 64% drop in 15 years. In the rest of the country, of course, recidivism rates have climbed (to a stunning 67.5% in California).

Finally, while more job opportunities are good, the state of the economy and the availability of jobs does not affect the amount of crime.  As the United States experienced the recession of 2007-2009, its urban violence dropped during the same period. With the exception of drug dealing, urban criminal activities are not meaningful economic efforts. They are situational, contingent activities, which Zimring describes as recreational, and they shut right down under increased law enforcement.

Professor Zimring offered four takeaways from his research:

First, police matter.  Sufficient police staffing is essential to making cities safe.

Second, focusing on drug crime violence goes a long way toward reducing the homicide rate.

Third, we don’t have to continue investing in imprisonment to lower crime rates.

Finally, cities, or certain city neighborhoods, do not have to be crime factories. Most of those who commit crimes act contingently and opportunistically; so effective police work can greatly reduce the amount of crime.