Oakland PD spending per capita

widespread protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder put a spotlight on the costs of police abuses such as excessive force and racial profiling that many across the country, especially people of color, have experienced.

One study published last year looked at long-term crime trends and police personnel rates in cities across the United States. The researchers found that as police numbers increased, there was a larger decrease in the number of Black people who were victims of violent crime compared to white people.

“But at the same time, (Black people) also have the most to lose by potentially being subjected to an increased number of arrests for low-level incidents,” Benjamin Hansen, an economist at the University of Oregon and one of the study’s co-authors, said in an interview. Those lowlevel arrests for violations like drug possession and disorderly conduct, he said, can burden Black people with the hardships of getting pulled into the criminal justice system.

Experts say cities can take other evidence-based actions to reduce crime. Investing in affordable housing in lowincome areas, for example, appears to be associated with bringing down crime, Owens said. Other research, Hansen noted, suggests that identifying community members who are likely to be involved with violent crime and providing them with cognitive behavioral therapy or summer jobs reduces violence, as does the simple act of improving street lighting.

However, there’s not a single violent crime intervention that researchers agree is the most cost-effective, Hansen said. That’s partially because it’s so difficult to calculate the true cost of something like a negative interaction with a police officer.

How Oakland’s leaders plan to reduce violent crime David Muhammad directs the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform and facilitated the city task force that recommended how to divert resources from Oakland’s police force. Muhammad believes that reaching out to the small number of people who are most likely to shoot or get shot right now is one of the most effective ways to reduce crime in the city.

This is the bedrock of Oakland’s Ceasefire program, which Muhammad advised. Ceasefire holds meetings known as “call-ins” with social service providers and law enforcement, offering them resources but also warning them that if they take up arms, they will become the focus of a police crackdown. Similar programs exist in cities across the country.

When shelter-in-place rules went into effect, the city’s intervention programs were hamstrung, struggling to continue work remotely that relies on interpersonal connections. That, combined with the despair of the pandemic, contributed to the spike in homicides, Muhammad said.

Ceasefire, which is part of the Police Department, currently has two professional staff members and 27 sworn staffers, Allison, the assistant chief, said. He’d like to meet the budget’s authorization for 39 sworn Ceasefire staff members, but is concerned that gaps in other parts of the department will make it difficult to move cops over.

The newly adopted budget drops the number of authorized sworn personnel to 737, from last year’s 786. The department didn’t lay off any officers when the new budget went into effect; staffing levels were already below 737. In recent years, the city hasn’t run enough police academies to bring the department up to its authorized staffing number, Mayor Schaaf said.

Though the department fell short of full staffing in years past, the salary savings were used for overtime spending to ensure an equivalent level of service, Schaaf said.

Armstrong said, the overall reduction in authorized staffing, coupled with the City Council’s decision to fund four police academies in the next two years — instead of six, as the mayor proposed — will make it difficult to fill vacancies across the department. A key recommendation of the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force was to shift responsibility for responding to some low-level crime reports outside of the Police Department. That would relieve some of the pressure on the patrol division.

The city is acting on that recommendation. The new budget provided funding for Macro, a new mobile crisis response unit, housed in the Fire Department, that will respond to nonviolent, noncriminal calls for service. Macro will hopefully launch within six months, Bas, the council president, said.

Next July, the Police Department will pass some responsibilities to the Department of Transportation, including dealing with auto tows, blocked driveways and other traffic-related calls, Bas said.

Oakland leaders are also investing in policing alternatives that they hope will reduce violent crime. The adopted budget increased funding for the city’s 4-year-old Department of Violence Prevention, which mediates conflicts and potential ones, and supports victims of violence. Bas said the Department of Violence Prevention will ramp up its work in the next six months, including hiring more violence interrupters.

Today, the service expectation of Oakland’s police officers is unrealistic, Bas said. That’s why the city is reducing the number of 911 calls that officers need to respond to.

Given how much patrol time is spent on non-criminal incidents, the department should assign more officers to Ceasefire and criminal investigations to address violent crime, Bas said. There’s no outside mandate that the department staff its patrol division at the level it does, she said, so the department should consider restructuring patrol to be more responsive to the specific beats with higher levels of violent crime, freeing up staff for units that are more focused on violent crime.

“I’m loath to say that we should hire more officers,” Regina Jackson, chair of the Oakland Police Commission, said. “Throwing money at the problem,” she said, might make people feel more safe in the short term, but it cannot be a substitute for the city building up a comprehensive violence prevention system.

Violent crime had been hurting Oakland communities long before the pandemic, said Antoine Towers, the chairman of the Oakland Violence Prevention Coalition. Homicides in the city dropped to a 20year low of 69 in 2017. But a so-called low homicide rate still caused immense suffering and deserved the city’s attention, he said.

“So now when it’s a hundred and something homicides, now you want to take notice of what we’re saying has been happening?” Towers said.