Pubic Safety - Ending Violence in Oakland

By Nancy J. Nadel

Violence in Oakland is exacerbated by inadequate education, poverty, substance abuse and mental ill health. I am working on several initiatives related to ending violence: Project Choice, Measure R, the city's Violence Prevention Plan, and a city/county violence prevention project.

Project Choice is a pilot project funded with federal dollars to help inmates prepare a pre-release plan that includes health care needs (substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment), education to lift them out of illiteracy, job skills, childcare and stable housing. An introduction to this project was funded with Community Action Agency dollars in the prior year under my leadership without the in-prison component. Working with parolees was successful with the limited resources we had, the most serious gap in funding was for housing. In the current program which has only enough funding for 40 adults and 20 juveniles, the biggest gap is actual jobs at the end of our helping them to prepare for the workforce. That's why we included a jobs program in Measure R.

Measure R: Crime and violence have reached crisis levels in Oakland. It's time to stop talking and take action. Oakland voters have an opportunity in March to make a lasting investment in our children and our future by investing in violence prevention programs that will keep our children out of trouble and on the right track for life. Measure R is a result of a year-long process with stakeholders, including criminal justice experts, who have a wide range of views and expertise on stopping violence. They agreed that enforcement, intervention and prevention, in the proportions proposed, is a well-balanced and politically intelligent package.

For less than $1.80 per week per parcel, Measure R lays out a three-pronged approach to preventing violence:

1. Investing in youth-oriented violence prevention programs with a proven track record, such as expanding Oakland's early childhood intervention program to help children exposed to domestic violence in the home at an early age and expanding after school and other violence prevention programs in the Oakland schools. (40%)
2. Providing counseling, mentoring, job training and employment opportunities to parolees and other at-risk youth (20%)
3. hiring 30 more police officers to expand community policing programs (40%)

Measure R sunsets in 10 years and requires an annual audit by the City Auditor, as well as a Citizen's Oversight Committee to be established by the City Manager to assure that the funds are spent on the programs as described in the ballot measure. There is an exemption for low income homeowners.

The City Council had the foresight to place this measure on the ballot in time for the March election. Waiting until November meant funds wouldn't be available until 2006 because of the property tax cycle. This year, after more than twice as many homicides as January 2003, the governor is proposing to take $4 million more of Oakland's property taxes and $7 million from county TANF funds that are currently used by the youth probation department for violence prevention programs. We cannot wait any longer.

Violence prevention programs work. Safe Passages has developed a program called Pathways to Change based on a model developed by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice which has reduced recidivism rates of youth offenders in San Francisco by 77% for nearly 10 years. Police Chief Richard Word supports Measure R because he and many of his staff recognize that enforcement is only a part of the solution, and is not sustainable without prevention and intervention programs, and community involvement.

Oaklanders across the political spectrum, many of whom have disagreed about how to deal with these issues in the past, support Measure R including Mayor Jerry Brown and myself, Chief Word and PUEBLO, Keith Carson, Larry Reid, Desley Brooks, business owners Frank Tucker and Phil Tagami, Tony Paap CEO of Children's Hospital, Kim Miyoshi of Kid's First, NWPC and many more. Visit our Website http://www.YesonR.org for the full list of endorsers, and make as generous a contribution as you can. Vote Yes on R.

Oakland Violence Prevention Plan: The Violence Prevention Plan is a product of several years of research, working with stakeholders and thinking through next steps. It covers 6 major policy areas including enforcement, youth, domestic violence, substance abuse, ex-offender re-integration. I will add a link to the plan in the near future. While the plan is completed, we consider it a living document and it is by no means fully funded. Just as we prepare a Housing Continuum of Care plan that is ready for grant funds as they are available from a variety of sources, we have done the same for Violence Prevention.

City/County Violence Prevention Project: One of our current projects is choosing two small geographic areas in Oakland - one in East and one in West Oakland that shows numerous and varied violent crime. These neighborhoods have been mapped for crime and for assets. Building on the Vallejo Fighting Back model and the Boston model to find the right approach for Oakland, we will be bringing a multitude of services, police enforcement and an organizer to these areas to meet the residents one-on-one, learn from them what they are facing in their neighborhood and link them to the services they need. The West Oakland neighborhood is an extremely low income neighborhood adjacent to an elementary school.

Team of staff working on this project include police, human services, city manager, city council from Oakland, Oakland Unified School District, Oakland Housing Authority, County Probation, and County Health.